Cricket World Ratings 26/7/2016

There are three interesting series taking place at the moment.  Most interesting, perhaps, is England's attempt to exploit home advantage and take revenge on Pakistan, who defeated them last winter.  England and Pakistan are clearly two of the world's top five teams right now.  Indeed, after Pakistan won the first test, and England the second, the two have converged on exactly the same ranking.  Both teams have only a few form batsmen: England won the second test after their two stars, Cook and Root, came good, the latter with a double hundred.  England have the better seam attack, but Pakistan's Yasir Shah is clearly the best spinner (indeed, after he took 10 wickets in the first test, he displaced England's Anderson as the world's highest ranked bowler). With two tests still to come, there's still a lot to play for, although right now England look favourites.

The other battles are less interesting.  Australia start their visit to Sri Lanka with a ranking 187 points higher than their hosts; India have a ranking 205 points better than the West Indies.  In each case, the weaker team is at home, but these are big margins.  The nice thing about an Elo-style rating system is that these margins actually mean something, and what a difference of 205 means is an expected value of 0.805 for India per game - or in effect, a prediction of a 4-1 victory in a 5 game series.  India have duly won the first test by a big margin, with Virat Kohli scoring (like Root for England) a double hundred, and wickets for Ravichandran Ashwin (who has therbey successed Yasir at the top of the bowling rankings after only one match).  The series prediction looks pretty good right right now: the home side (who won the T20 world cup this winter) are surely capable of winning a test, but a West Indian victory in the series would be remarkable (and might have been thought of as such even before this disastrous start).

Australia begin against Sri Lanka today; the inexperienced Sri Lankans, recently defeated by England, may also find home advantage inadequate.

So here are the latest rankings.  England have gained more from beating Pakistan than India have gained from their well-expected victory. But the next few weeks could see quite a lot of movement as all three series progress.

Australia     166    
India         123  +7 
England        91 +19 
Pakistan       91 -19  
South Africa   76    
New Zealand    43    
Sri Lanka     -21   
West Indies   -82  -7   
Bangladesh   -172    
Zimbabwe     -315

A tanatalising start to a promising series

The test series between England and Pakistan certainly seems like an enticing prospect, as England's mercurial young team seeks revenge on a side who beat them last winter.  England have strong bowling but a thin batting line-up: Pakistan have a legspinner in Yasir (always a rarity to see in England), Mohammad Amir (back from a lengthy ban after his involvement in match-fixing whilst only a teenager), and in Younis Khan and Misbah ul-Haq, the two oldest batsmen still playing international cricket.  And in both my ratings and the official world ratings, the vistors and the home side started the series in 3rd and 4th places respectively, with almost nothing to choose between them.  And on Saturday, I was there, watching an absorbing day's cricket in a close match in which Pakistan were almost continuously in front, but never by much.  In the end, Yasir's spin was probably the difference between the two sides.  England, still without Anderson and Stokes, will get better, but pulling this one back is going to need some batsmen finally finding some form.

So in the ratings we see England lose a place, with ground to make up in the remaing three matches.  Before long, Sri Lanka will host Australia, West Indies host India, and New Zealand travel to Zimbabwe, so there's a lot at stake over the next few weeks.  But Pakistan have drunk the first blood of the high summer.


Australia     166    
India         116    
Pakistan      110 +17  
South Africa   76    
England        72 -17  
New Zealand    43    
Sri Lanka     -21    
West Indies   -75    
Bangladesh   -172    
Zimbabwe     -315