The Champions Trophy, a one-day competition, occupied the first part of the English summer; but there are still seven scheduled tests, and the first two (of four between the home nation and South Africa) are now completed. In each game, the team batting first eventually won comfortably, England in the first game, South Africa in the second. It's an intriguing contest, England don't yet appear to have a balanced side (following on from their disastrous winter); South Africa are away from home and also possibly a couple of class players short (although there's certainly talent, as well as fragility, in both teams). The remaining two matches are a very interesting propsect.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka, who recently lost to Bangladesh for the first time, very nearly completed an unwelcome double by getting into a disastrous position against Zimbabwe; but came from behind with an epic run chase. Moreoever, this is an isolated test, so Zimbabwe will not get another chance to prove their near-miss was no fluke.
So the current status of the world ratings are as follows:
India 192
South Africa 132 -10
Australia 115
New Zealand 53
England 35 +10
Pakistan 8
Sri Lanka 2 +3
West Indies -64
Bangladesh -145
Zimbabwe -328 -3
And the official world ratings, which take into account the Sri Lanka-Zimbabwe test, but not the still incompelte England-South Africa Series:
India 123 +1
South Africa 117 +8
Australia 100 -8
England 99 -2
New Zealand 97 +1
Pakistan 93 -4
Sri Lanka 92 +2
West Indies 75 +6
Bangladesh 69 +3
Zimbabwe 0 -5
One odd feature of the official world ratings is that they divide up the cricket year into defined seasons, and when the new season begins, the old ratings get reset, with more dramatic changes than usual - so every team's rating has gone up or down since I last checked the list. Another point to note is that after these changes, the two lists are more in agreement than they were before. Finally, poor Zimbabwe, who are both a weak team but who also get to play little cricket, sadly no longer have a single positive result that scores them any credit in the eligible period. In my system, there is no theoretical limit to how low a team can be rated: their current score of -328 isn't quite a record (in 2008, they rated -334). But the ICC system is grounded at zero, and that's where Zimbabwe sit right now.
