Which is the best team?

If we look at only World Cup games  how do the teams come off in the rankings?

Which team is the closest cricketing equivalent of Brazil in World Cup football? Is it Australia or West Indies or some other team?

We thought that this was an interesting question to ask as we begin our countdown to the eighth World Cup. An e-mail from the Rediff sports desk, containing the scores of all the World Cup games played so far, set the ball rolling. We used our scheme for the Rediff ODI ratings to carry out this analysis -- with just one modification: we ignored the 'home-away' factor.

We also decided to rate only the top nine ODI teams since no one's really expecting Holland or Bangladesh to be in the reckoning (so our analysis only looks at the 162 games played in the first seven World Cups involving these top nine teams). We were a little worried about South Africa; they have only played the last three World Cups but performed very strongly, especially in the league phase. What if South Africa turn out to be No 1? Would that be a fair appraisal?

The first step was to prepare our points table (Table A) which lists the results of all head-to-head World Cup encounters between the nine competing teams. While compiling this table we did not consider abandoned matches. We also awarded full points to Australia against South Africa in that dramatic 1999 semi-final although the scores were tied at 213.

To 'read' Table A, consider a typical entry such as 5/7 in the Aus-Ind cell in the first row. This means that Australia have won 5 out of their 7 World Cup encounters against India. If, instead, we look at the corresponding Ind-Aus cell in the third row we will find (as we must) that India have won 2 out of their 7 World Cup encounters against Australia.

TABLE A: WORLD CUP RESULTS SO FAR (162 matches during 1975-1999 involving the top nine teams)

		Aus	Eng	Ind	NZ	Pak	RSA	SL	WI	Zim
	Australia		2 / 4	5 / 7	3 / 5	3 / 6	2 / 3	2 / 3	3 / 8	6 / 7
	England	2 / 4		3 / 5	3 / 6	3 / 7	2 / 4	6 / 7	3 / 4	1 / 2
	India	2 / 7	2 / 5		2 / 6	3 / 3	0 / 2	1 / 4	3 / 6	6 / 7
	New Zealand	2 / 5	3 / 6	4 / 6		1 / 7	1 / 3	3 / 4	1 / 4	3 / 3
	Pakistan	3 / 6	4 / 7	0 / 3	6 / 7		0 / 3	6 / 6	2 / 7	2 / 2
	South Africa	1 / 3	2 / 4	2 / 2	2 / 3	3 / 3		1 / 2	1 / 2	1 / 2
	Sri Lanka	1 / 3	1 / 7	3 / 4	1 / 4	0 / 6	1 / 2		0 / 4	3 / 3
	West Indies	5 / 8	1 / 4	3 / 6	3 / 4	5 / 7	1 / 2	4 / 4		4 / 4
	Zimbabwe	1 / 7	1 / 2	1 / 7	0 / 3	0 / 2	1 / 2	0 / 3	0 / 4

Table A is revealing. For instance the fact that India have beaten Pakistan three times out of three in World Cup matches, or the fact that Pakistan have beaten Sri Lanka six times out of six! There are other interesting observations: New Zealand find it very difficult to defeat Pakistan (1 win out of 7) and Sri Lanka appear to have a similar problem against England. The Zimbabwe row also has a story to tell: that they can sneak in unexpected victories; against Australia in 1983 and against India and even South Africa in 1999 (now is that puzzling?).

The World Cup is the ultimate tournament. Winning is everything here! Just as curious digression before plunging into the complete analysis, we checked out two simple calculations. First, the team's average (SI) of World Cup wins (awarding, as always 1 point for a win and 0 for a loss), and, second, the weighted index (WI) taking into account the strength of the opposition. Table B, below, presents what we found.

TABLE B: RANKINGS BASED ON SIMPLE AVERAGES AND AFTER CONSIDERING OPPOSITION STRENGTH

Team	Average wins (SI) rank in brackets	Weighted index (WI) rank in brackets
Australia	60.47 (3)	56.99 (4)
England	58.97 (4)	57.36 (3)
India	47.50 (6)	41.78 (7)
New Zealand	47.37 (7)	42.18 (6)
Pakistan	56.10 (5)	43.26 (5)
South Africa	61.90 (2)	63.03 (1)
Sri Lanka	30.30 (8)	29.19 (8)
West Indies	66.67 (1)	60.24 (2)
Zimbabwe	13.33 (9)	17.67 (9)

Note:
SI = the team's average of World Cup wins
WI = the weighted index taking into account the strength of the opposition

What does Table B tell us? A great deal. That Sri Lanka have a surprisingly poor record in World Cup cricket. That Pakistan crush weak opponents like Sri Lanka and New Zealand but have trouble defeating the top teams (that's why after considering the opposition strength Pakistan drop by almost 13 percentage points). That, till the shocking 1983 final loss to India, West Indies had a colossal winning record.

But really the big question to ask is: would we agree with these rankings? There can't be much disagreement about West Indies being No 1 or No 2. But do we agree that two-time World Cup winners Australia could be as low as No 3 or No 4? Can we accept that England or South Africa, who have never won the World Cup, could end up being above Australia?

Most of us would strongly disagree with these rankings. Simply because they fail to pick out the real winners! This happens because all our calculations so far do not distinguish between a mere league game and the big World Cup final or semi-final.

We must therefore do better. We must bring in the factor that will reward the big match wins. In the Rediff ratings we have now integrated this factor and, as we shall see, we will get results that are much more plausible and convincing.

But we can't help wondering what the results would be if we applied the new ICC ODI rating formula. We are almost sure that the ICC ODI rating formula would give rankings very similar to those obtained from the weighted averages in Table B.

How, then, do we proceed with the calculation of the 'big match' or 'tournament' factor? It's a little tricky because cricket World Cups (much like football World Cups) have had very variable formats. For example, till 1992, we had semi-finals and a final after a league phase. In 1996 we had quarter final encounters, and the Super Six business started in 1999.

So how do we give the points required to compute the tournament index (TI)? After some reflection we decided that the winner would get 8 points out of 8 (8/8), the losing finalist would get 4/8, the two losing semi-finalists would get 2/8 each; and losing quarter-finalists, or Super Six qualifiers, would get 1 point out of 8 (1/8). Teams which failed to get anywhere would get 0/8.

Table C shows the calculation of the tournament index.

TABLE C: CALCULATION OF TOURNAMENT INDEX (TI) FOR WORLD CUP MATCHES

Team	1975	1979	1983	1987	1992	1996	1999	Total	Tournament index (TI) rank in brackets
Australia	4 / 8	0 / 8	0 / 8	8 / 8	0 / 8	4 / 8	8 / 8	24 / 56	42.86 (1)
England	2 / 8	4 / 8	2 / 8	4 / 8	4 / 8	1 / 8	0 / 8	17 / 56	30.36 (4)
India	0 / 8	0 / 8	8 / 8	2 / 8	0 / 8	2 / 8	1 / 8	13 / 56	23.21 (5)
New Zealand	2 / 8	2 / 8	0 / 8	0 / 8	2 / 8	1 / 8	2 / 8	9 / 56	16.07 (7)
Pakistan	0 / 8	2 / 8	2 / 8	2 / 8	8 / 8	1 / 8	4 / 8	19 / 56	33.93 (3)
South Africa					2 / 8	1 / 8	2 / 8	5 / 24	20.83 (6)
Sri Lanka	0 / 8	0 / 8	0 / 8	0 / 8	0 / 8	8 / 8	0 / 8	8 / 56	14.29 (8)
West Indies	8 / 8	8 / 8	4 / 8	0 / 8	0 / 8	2 / 8	0 / 8	22 / 56	39.29 (2)
Zimbabwe			0 / 8	0 / 8	0 / 8	0 / 8	1 / 8	1 / 40	2.50 (9)

Note:
TI = Tournament Index
SI = the team's average of World Cup wins
WI = the weighted index taking into account the strength of the opposition

Table C separates the big boys from the kids. Australia and West Indies, being two-time winners, are the top two. Pakistan, the dangerously unpredictable World Cup mavericks, are placed third while the doughty Englishman, who always go some distance, are fourth.

We are now just a step away from our final verdict. To reach this verdict we must combine the opponent-specific weighted index (WI) and the tournament index (TI). As explained earlier, we will use the well-accepted procedure of combining the two indices by choosing weights that are in inverse proportion to the standard deviations of the two indices.

Table D, below, finally unveils the champion of World Cup cricket!

TABLE D: WORLD CUP CRICKET RANKINGS

Team	WI	TI	ODI RBI = WI * 0.4598 + TI * 0.5402	Ranking
Australia	56.99	42.86	49.36	1
West Indies	60.24	39.29	48.92	2
England	57.36	30.36	42.77	3
South Africa	63.03	20.83	40.24	4
Pakistan	43.26	33.93	38.22	5
India	41.78	23.21	31.75	6
New Zealand	42.18	16.07	28.08	7
Sri Lanka	29.19	14.29	21.14	8
Zimbabwe	17.67	2.50	9.48	9

Note:
TI = Tournament Index
WI = the weighted index taking into account the strength of the opposition

So Australia again come out at the top defeating West Indies by a whisker; but it is still a special pleasure to see West Indies right up there. England are rewarded for being arguably the most consistent World Cup team (only 1999 was the big blemish). South Africa might be surprised to be fourth, but they've never won the really big games and are known to 'choke'. The message for Pakistan, India and -- especially -- Sri Lanka is that the odd World Cup win is not enough to make it to the big league.

We must end by admitting that Australia still don't look like Brazil do in World Cup football. They perhaps look a lot like Germany. Call it old-fashioned nostalgia, or attribute it to geographical proximity, but, in the eyes of the genuine cricket enthusiast, the 'Brazil' of World Cup cricket will always be West Indies!

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

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