How the rankings work?

ICC Test rankings

Test Updates:
March 14
March 4
February 12
January 18
January 11
December 23
December 5
November 30

ODI Updates:
March 20
March 5
February 20
February 9
February 5
January 14

Australia should be No. 1 for a long time

Australia's defeat in the third test against South Africa must be regarded only as a minor blemish. They still reign supreme, and one doesn't really know how and when Australia could lose their No. 1 ranking. We predict that they will stay at the top for a very long time.

The real surprise has been England's rock steady hold on the third position. They still have a few battles ahead in the next two tests in New Zealand (especially because they will be hard-pressed to better their 2-0 record of their previous NZ tour), but it does appear that England too are quite comfortably entrenched.

England could be challenged by Sri Lanka when the two teams meet a few months later in England. But, at least in the first half of the season, it's unlikely that they will lose at home to Sri Lanka (at the Oval, a few years ago, Sri Lanka had humbled England. But that was a mentally weaker English team and it was the last test of the season when even Jayasuriya's spin can appear venomous).

The current (as on March 19, 2002) home-away point tally of test playing teams is shown, below, in Table A.
-- How the rankings work...

TABLE A: Test Score Card (as on March 19, 2002)

		A W A Y
		Aus	Eng	Ind	NZ	Pak	RSA	SL	WI	Zim
H O M E	Australia		4 / 5 3.5 / 5	1 / 3 3 / 3	3 / 3 1.5 / 3	2 / 3 3 / 3	2 / 3 3 / 3	1 / 3 3 / 3	2 / 4 5 / 5	1 / 1 -
	England	1.5 / 5 1 / 5		1 / 3 2 / 3	2.5 / 3 1.5 / 4	2 / 3 1 / 2	2 / 5 3 / 5	2 / 3 0 / 1	2 / 6 3.5 / 5	1 / 2 1.5 / 2
	India	0 / 3 2 / 3	1 / 3 2 / 3		1 / 3 2 / 3	2 / 4 1 / 3	0.5 / 2 0 / 2	1 / 3 1.5 / 3	2 / 5 1.5 / 3	1 / 2 2 / 2
	New Zealand	1.5 / 3 0 / 3	2.5 / 4 0.5 / 3	1 / 3 2 / 3		1 / 2 1.5 / 3	0.5 / 3 1 / 3	1 / 3 2 / 2	0.5 / 2 2 / 2	2 / 2 0.5 / 1
	Pakistan	0 / 3 1 / 3	1 / 2 1 / 3	2 / 3 2 / 4	1.5 / 3 1 / 2		1 / 2 1 / 3	2.5 / 3 1 / 4	1 / 3 2 / 2	1.5 / 2 1 / 3
	South Africa	0 / 3 1 / 3	2 / 5 3 / 5	2 / 2 1.5 / 2	2 / 3 2.5 / 3	2 / 3 1 / 2		1.5 / 3 2.5 / 3	3 / 5 5 / 5	1 / 1 2 / 2
	Sri Lanka	0 / 3 2 / 3	1 / 1 1 / 3	1.5 / 3 2 / 3	0 / 2 2 / 3	3 / 4 0.5 / 3	0.5 / 3 1.5 / 3		0.5 / 2 3 / 3	2 / 3 3 / 3
	West Indies	0 / 5 2 / 4	1.5 / 5 4 / 6	1.5 / 3 3 / 5	0 / 2 1.5 / 2	0 / 2 2 / 3	0 / 5 2 / 5	0 / 3 1.5 / 2		1.5 / 2 2 / 2
	Zimbabwe	- 0 / 1	0.5 / 2 1 / 2	0 / 2 1 / 2	0.5 / 1 0 / 2	2 / 3 0.5 / 2	0 / 2 0 / 1	0 / 3 1 / 3	0 / 2 0.5 / 2

The corresponding ranking table, Table F, appears below.

TABLE F: Final Rankings (as on March 19, 2002)

Country	Performance index (RBI)	Rank
Australia	74.56	1
South Africa	57.04	2
England	47.16	3
New Zealand	42.77	4
Sri Lanka	42.55	5
Pakistan	42.25	6
India	39.62	7
West Indies	35.39	8
Zimbabwe	18.38	9

Readers will notice that Table F hasn't changed since the last update (which is why we don't have the difference column). This is because South Africa's win in the third test meant that the points tally remained unchanged at 2 for Australia and 1 for South Africa (although the last time the series ended 1-0 in Australia's favour with two draws).

Our next update will appear after the England-New Zealand test series ends. In that update we will also discuss possible scenarios in the India-West Indies test series. If India win that series handsomely, they will soar upwards to gain membership into the "top four club". It is a wonderful opportunity, but will India grab it?

M J Manohar Rao is professor and director, Department of Economics, University of Mumbai, Mumbai; Srinivas Bhogle is scientist and head, Information Management Division, National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore.