ICC One-day Rankings Refreshed

[vetts]

Well as you may or may not know, the ICC One Day rankings only record the last two years of results, with the older results being dropped every year. This means that when this season is dropped, big changes occur in the standings as a result! Just have a geeze at this...

Significant changes to the International Cricket Council's one-day international rankings list have occurred as the first year of results in the original calculation drop out.

The refreshed table is based on the results of the last two years. Matches played in the last 12 months have a higher weighting in the calculation. They are worth two-thirds and the previous year has a one-third value, with matches played in the next year worth full value. An annual refresh of the table will be done on July 31.

The new order is:

                      New      Old    Rating    Rank
                    Rating  Rating  Change  Change
1  Australia        134      132      +2        -
2  South Africa    118      120      -2        -
3  England          107      103      +4      up 4
4  West Indies      106      103      +3      up 2
5  New Zealand      106      101      +5      up 3
6  Sri Lanka        105      106      -1    down 2
7  Pakistan        105      108      -3    down 4
8  India            104      104      -    down 3
9  Zimbabwe          63      66      -3        -
10  Kenya            28      28      -        -
11  Bangladesh        3        4      -1        -

New Zealand has enjoyed the biggest jump, in terms of rating points, moving from eighth to fifth place, while England has leapt four places to No 3 and the West Indies have increased three places from seventh to fourth.

The reasons for the marked change, and the way the system works this sort of upheaval could occur each year, are because the teams that have improved, have had bad seasons drop off their calculations. England lost a season in which it had two wins from 14 games, New Zealand lost a year in which they had 12 wins in 35 completed games, and the West Indies dropped a year in which they won only eight games of 23.

The opportunity for fluctuation is high, and probably reflects the competitiveness of the teams concerned. Only three points separate third-placed England and eighth-placed India.

It is so close that if a team like India won two or three games in a row against a top-ranked team like Australia or South Africa, they could almost immediately leap to third place. England had such a leap in its performance by beating South Africa three times out of four in their recent NatWest Series.

The method of separating teams with equal ratings has also changed as the system has evolved. Previously the team with most matches got the higher rating, but now the rating is extended to three decimal places to resolve the issue. England, the West Indies and New Zealand are separated by only 0.826 rating points, and the West Indies and New Zealand by 0.174.

The actual ratings for the three are: England 106.783, West Indies 106.130 and New Zealand 105.957.

The change has also highlighted Australia's increased dominance as the gap between it and second-placed South Africa has now extended from 12 to 16 points. Such has been world champion Australia's dominance of the one-day game that it is going to have to suffer a massive turnaround in form to lose its hold on first place. Its last 12 months has been its most successful period to date, so that season will not fall out of calculations for another two years.

Pakistan and Zimbabwe both paid the price for having good seasons drop off the calculation scale. Pakistan has had a poor last 12 months while Zimbabwe has suffered a more gradual decline over the last three years.

So fans from the asia area will be a bit dissapointed with the drops, but pms, windies, and kiwis should be pleased that the standings show there improvements well.

 

[sonic]

wow, we're up to third? whats going on! :o

 

[T20]

Originally posted by sonic@Jul 15 2003, 08:34 PM
wow, we're up to third? whats going on! :o

what do you expect after reaching semi finals??

 

[vetts]

The real reason for englands jump wasn't really that they have been playing supurbly, but more due to the fact that the year that was dropped from the ratings contained only 2 wins out of 14...... so that helps Sh#tloads.

 

[Auwais BARTHEZ]

Ahhh...crap! Pakistan gone down four?! That's really not good enough seeing how well they played. Hopefully they'll pinch back their place from England. :vampire: :taz:

 

[killa_stiky2002]

Good to see West Indies where they belong. I really think Carl Hooper started it all.

With a young team for about 3 years like West Indies being in 4th in the (2-year ) rankings is good to see.

When people like Sarwan further develop and Samuels also with the bat and ball and when Lawson returns with an ICC-friendly action and Edward keeps on swinging I think we'll make it far in 2007 @ home

 

[vetts]

For those who are interested (Expecially annoyed indians...)

The ICC has finally come up with a detailed explanation for India's unexpected drop to eighth place in the one-day international ratings, despite their achievement in reaching the World Cup final in South Africa earlier this year.

In a teleconference, held exclusively for the Indian media, David Kendix, the man behind the new ratings, explained that India had, on average, played against relatively weak teams over the last two years - the average opponent rating for India was 94, the lowest among all teams. This meant that, despite winning a higher percentage of matches than most other teams, India found themselves among the bottom-rungers.

As the table below indicates, England's average opponent rating of 107 was the highest for any team over the last two years, while India was the only team among the top eight with a sub-100 figure. That explained England's high rank despite a win-percentage of just 49.

What do these average opponent ratings indicate? It means that if England win 50% of their matches, their rating will be 107 - since that's the average rating of their opponents - while India will only have a rating of 94 if they win half their total ODIs. This implies that to match England's rating, India would need to win 13% more matches than England.

Average rating of the opponents for the top eight teams
  Rating  Avg Opp.      Rating Win %
Australia    134    105  73.08
South Africa    118    103  62.50
England    107    107  48.93
West Indies    106    103  50.00
New Zealand  106    105  44.90
Sri Lanka    105    104  49.25
Pakistan    105    101  56.90
India      104    94        56.25               

It's obvious that India paid the price for playing 14 matches against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and Kenya, and just two against Australia in the last two years. However, a look at the schedule over the next few months suggests that the opponent rating index for India could shoot up dramatically: India play Australia at least seven times in two ODI triangular series. If India and Australia contest the finals of both those tournaments - with New Zealand and Zimbabwe being the third teams in the two events, that's a distinct possibility - that figure could go up to 10 or 11. The average opponent rating for India will then surely go up; if they notch up a few wins, their rating will skyrocket as well.

Meanwhile, Dave Richardson, the ICC's general manager for cricket, and Brendan McClements, general manager (corporate affairs), insisted that no changes were planned for the rating system. According to the current method, the results of one year's matches will be removed on August 1 each year. Arguing against a system which takes only the last two year's results at any given point of time - instead of having August 1 as a cut-off date annually - McClements said: "The whole process of monitoring the table and predicting what will happen becomes more difficult. No-one could look at the table and say `if we win our next two matches, this is what will happen'.

"The other point is, a team could win a very good match, and it doesn't help your rating as you might drop at exactly the same time, a good result from two years earlier [which is now removed]." Currently, matches which are held after August will get a weightage of one, while the matches earlier, including the NatWest Series games, get only two-third weightage.

Richardson explained the logic behind choosing August 1 as the changeover date. "It's a period where there are likely to be few one-day matches being played around the world. We didn't want to get into a situation where one game in a series counts for more than another."

McClements was emphatic in stating that there was no rethink about according greater weightage to more important matches. McClements said: "It was a strong resolve from all countries that each game be treated equally. There is danger in trying to treat different games in different ways, and we felt it'd be far more effective if each game was treated in the same way."

It was creditable that the ICC at least attempted to explain a method that no-one seems to be able to understand, but ultimately, it was unlikely to move too many people in favour of the method.

? Wisden CricInfo Ltd