How the rankings work?

ICC Test rankings

Test Updates:
June 18, 2002
June 4, 2002
May 16, 2002
Apr 5, 2002
Mar 20, 2002
Mar 14, 2002
Mar 4, 2002
Feb 12, 2002
Jan 18, 2002
Jan 11, 2002
Dec 23, 2001
Dec 5, 2001
Nov 30, 2001

ODI Updates:
June 3, 2002
May 16, 2002
Apr 25, 2002
Apr 10, 2002
Mar 20, 2002
Mar 5, 2002
Feb 20, 2002
Feb 9, 2002
Feb 5, 2002
Jan 14, 2002

NZ challenging England for the third place

England (47.20) are still placed third in the Rediff test ratings; but they face a very strong challenge from a resurgent New Zealand (47.05) test team.

Defeating West Indies in West Indies continues to be very profitable. NZ have gained over three points after this 1-0 series win to climb from 44.01 to 47.05.

Sri Lanka (39.59) too benefit from New Zealand's series victory. They are again ahead of India (39.37). This must re-assure some of our readers who expressed their surprise at India sneaking ahead of Sri Lanka last time. "Sri Lanka can't be seventh after winning so many tests in a row!", many readers wrote. This argument certainly appears reasonable; but we mustn't forget that SL won three out of three each against the lowest placed WI and Zimbabwe at home! Two other wins came against the seventh placed Indians, again at home.

But Sri Lanka, and indeed England, must still be very watchful because the India-England series starting shortly could well change things once again. We calculate that England (and Sri Lanka) would go down even if the series ends 1-0 or 2-1 in England's favour. Table G, which will appear at the end of this article, will highlight all the likely scenarios in the India-England series and their effect on the ratings of India, England, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.

The current (as on July 3, 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 Jul 3, 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	1.5 / 3 1.5 / 4	2 / 3 1 / 2	2 / 5 3 / 5	2 / 3 2.5 / 3	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 1.5 / 3	1 / 3 2 / 3		0 / 1 1.5 / 3	0.5 / 3 1 / 3	1 / 3 2 / 2	1.5 / 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 / 1		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	0.5 / 3 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 0.5 / 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 Jul 3, 2002)

Country	Performance index (RBI)	Rank	Difference 18.6.02 to 3.7.02/FONT>
Australia	74.69	1	-0.12
South Africa	56.69	2	-0.03
England	47.20	3	-0.07
New Zealand	47.05	4	+3.04
Pakistan	43.32	5	-0.02
Sri Lanka	39.59	6	+0.28
India	39.37	7	+0.05
West Indies	33.09	8	-1.64
Zimbabwe	18.32	9	-0.03

Finally Table G, below, looks at the more likely scenarios in the forthcoming India-England four-test series.

TABLE G: INDIA VS ENGLAND: PROBABLE SCENARIOS

Points break-up (1 point for win, 0.5 for draw, 0 for loss)	Ind's new index (RBI)	Eng's new index (RBI)	NZ's new index (RBI)	SL's new index (RBI)	Remarks
Eng: 1, Ind: 3	42.82	45.10	46.97	39.97	NZ 3, Eng 4, Ind 6, SL 7
Eng: 1.5, Ind: 2.5	41.85	45.80	47.00	39.85	NZ 3, Eng 4, Ind 6, SL 7
Eng: 2, Ind: 2	40.81	46.43	47.03	39.73	NZ 3, Eng 4, Ind 6, SL 7
Eng: 2.5, Ind: 1.5	39.71	47.01	47.06	39.61	NZ 3, Eng 4, Ind 6, SL 7
Eng: 3, Ind: 1	38.54	47.52	47.10	39.50	Eng 3, NZ 4, SL 6, Ind 7

Looking at Table G it is clear that India holds the key. Even an "above average" Indian performance would push both England and Sri Lanka down to the fourth and seventh places respectively. One just hopes that India won't falter once again.

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.