Cricket World Ratings 31st December 2018

Three games of test cricket begun on Boxing Day.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, South Africa beat their visitors Pakistan, and New Zealand beat their guests Sri Lanka.  Neither Pakistan nor Sri Lanka have been in the greatest form recently, and Sri Lanka managed to lose by an almost preposterous margin of 423 runs, in spite of dismissing New Zealand fairly cheaply in the first innings, leading to their 0-1 defeat in a two test series.  Most interesting was India's away win in Australia, as the side recovered from losing the 2nd test to take a 2-1 lead in the series.  Teams from the Indian subcontinent often struggle away from home, and India, following a string of great performances mostly on home territory, have lost this year in both South Africa and England.  It's a tough ask to also tour Australia within such a short timescale.  But Australia have problems of their own, ever since they sacked (and banned) their captain Steve Smith for an embarrassing ball-tampering episode. They still have work to do to avoid a home defeat.  My current cricket world ratings now look like this:

England       221    
India         205 +23  
South Africa  187 +12  
New Zealand   141 +14
Australia     107 -23
Pakistan      100 -12  
Sri Lanka      82 -14  
West Indies   -46   
Bangladesh    -73   
Zimbabwe     -252    
Ireland      -320    
Afghanistan  -352

It's interesting at the year's end to compare the ratings to where they were last year.  I've adjusted my methodology this year, and in addition, the entry of Afghanistan and Ireland to test cricket gave everbody else's ratings a boost by 67 points, but after making adjustments, the comparable numbersat the end of 2017 were these:

India         256  
Australia     189  
South Africa  180  
New Zealand   131   
Sri Lanka     111   
England       100   
Pakistan       54   
West Indies   -13   
Bangladesh    -60   
Zimbabwe     -280

It's been a good year for England, who after a poor start beat India at home and Sri Lanka away.   As we have noted, India have had some tough series and have slipped from the front. South Africa have been solid throughout the year; Australia, Sri Lanka and West Indies all appear to be going backwards; while Pakistan have actually moved upwards, albeit from a low base.

Meanwhile, the official ratings look broadly similar to mine, but rating India and New Zealand higher (at the expense of England and South Africa respectively):

India        116
England      108
New Zealand  107  +2
South Africa 106 
Australia    102 
Pakistan      92  
Sri Lanka     91  -2
West Indies   70  
Bangladesh    69   
Zimbabwe      13 

The series in Australia and South Africa will continue early in the new year.

Cricket World Ratings 19th December 2018

After a long drought, Australia have finally won a test, levelling their series against India. Sri Lanka, meanwhile, have played out the first of their two games in New Zealand for a draw.  The effect on my cricket world ratings is as follows:

England       221    
India         182 -24  
South Africa  175
Australia     130 +24
New Zealand   127  -9
Pakistan      112 -17  
Sri Lanka      96  +9  
West Indies   -46   
Bangladesh    -73   
Zimbabwe     -252    
Ireland      -320    
Afghanistan  -352

Both series resume on Boxing Day.

Cricket World Ratings 10th December 2018

New Zealand won their first game against Pakistan by the improbably small margin of just 4 runs.  They lost the second test, but have managed victory in the third, securing a series win.  Meanwhile, Bangladesh have defeated the West Indies; and India have won a rare away victory in the first match of their series in Australia, who have been suffering ever since they were engulfed by scandal on their tour of South Africa last winter. The effect of this on my cricket world ratings are as follows:


England       221    
India         206 +23  
South Africa  175    
New Zealand   136 +17 
Pakistan      112 -17  
Australia     106 -23  
Sri Lanka      87   
West Indies   -46 -47  
Bangladesh    -73 +46  
Zimbabwe     -252    
Ireland      -320    
Afghanistan  -352

Bangladesh's current rating is their highest ever.  The official ratings, meanwhile, have undergone a few updates since I last reported on them, and now look like this:


India        116
England      108
South Africa 106
New Zealand  105  +3
Australia    102
Sri Lanka     93  -4
Pakistan      92  -3
West Indies   70  -6
Bangladesh    69  +2
Zimbabwe      13 +11

So overall the pattern is similar, but India are still recongised on top, whereas in my ratings, they lost that position with their defeat to England this summer. Next up: Sri Lanka go to New Zealand, while India continue their Australian adventures.

Cricket World Ratings 27th November 2018

England are on a roll at the moment: 8 wins in 9, and they've just completed a rare away whitewash, beating Sri Lanka for the 3rd test in succession.  Meanwhile, Pakistan, narrowly pipped in their first match against New Zealand, have gained some revenge by comprehensively winning the following match. My cricket world ratings now look like this:

England       221 +20  
India         183 
South Africa  175        
Australia     129
Pakistan      129 +31
New Zealand   119 -30
Sri Lanka      87 -20
West Indies     1    
Bangladesh   -119   
Zimbabwe     -252    
Ireland      -319    
Afghanistan  -351


Pakistan and New Zealand will now play a decider; the West Indies head to Bangladesh; most itneresting is whether India will be able to reassert themselves, on tour to an Australian side who've been struggling since the ball-tampering contraversy last winter.  England will be back in action in the new year, when they will tour the Caribbean.

Cricket World Ratings 20th November 2018

Zimbabwe won their first match away from home for 15 years when they played Bangladesh earlier this month.  But the home side have since won the second test match, drawing the series.  England, meanwhile, have managed to win two on the trot in Sri Lanka, guaranteeing a series win with one more to play.  The most interesting recent match, however, was Pakistan's first game in New Zealand, in which the visitors held the whip hand for most of the game but succumbed at the end by just four runs, the 5th closest test match in history.  The net effect of these games on my cricket world ratings is as follows.  The most striking feature is England's ascendency.  Well beaten in the Ashes, and defeated in their first home test of the summer, England now stand 7-1 in their last eight games, including a 4-1 series win over highly rated India, and now two away victories.  They may not be a great team, yet, but it's not unambiguously clear who is really stronger than them right now.

England       201 +24  
India         183 
South Africa  175      
New Zealand   149 +15
Australia     129
Sri Lanka     107 -23
Pakistan       98 -15    
West Indies     1    
Bangladesh   -119 +10   
Zimbabwe     -252  -9   
Ireland      -319    
Afghanistan  -351

The official ratings, meanwhile, look like this:

India        116
South Africa 106 
England      105  
New Zealand  102 
Australia    102
Sri Lanka     97 
Pakistan      95
West Indies   76
Bangladesh    67  
Zimbabwe       2 

The Bangladesh-Zimbabwe series, has, interestingly made no difference at all to the previous scores.  The other series are not yet complete and will only impact upon the ratings when they're done.

Cricket World Ratings, 10th November 2018

Two slightly surprising matches have been played this month.  Firstly, Zimbabwe won their first test match away from home since 2001, seeing off Bangladesh; and England won their first away victory since 2016, beating Sri Lanka.  The effect on my world ratings is as follows:


India         183 
England       177 +28  
South Africa  175      
New Zealand   134 
Sri Lanka     130 -26
Australia     129
Pakistan      113    
West Indies     1    
Bangladesh   -129 -36   
Zimbabwe     -243 +36   
Ireland      -319    
Afghanistan  -351

The recent changes made to my world rating system make them especially sensitive to unexpected away victories. Are England really the 2nd best team in the world, and moreover, within a whisker of first place? Well, they thashed top-placed India this summer, and moreover have now registered a good away win, albeit in just one game so far.  Meanwhile, Australia are struggling.  In truth, it's not clear who the best team in the world is right now.  England's surge maybe feels overdone, but it's actually an arguable positon, and a strong recovery from a rating of just 9 at the end of last winter's tours.  More matches to come in both these series; also, New Zealand will shortly be hosted by Pakistan in the U.A.E.

Cricket World Ratings, 20th October 2018

Two tests have been played in the last week, bith ending in home victory.  For the second time in a row, India saw off the West Indies; while Pakistan, who'd failed to finish off Australia in the their first test, emphatically did so in the second.  The effect on my world ratings is as follows:


India         183  +6   
South Africa  175      
Sri Lanka     156   
England       149    
New Zealand   134 
Australia     129 -32
Pakistan      113 +32   
West Indies     1  -6   
Bangladesh    -93    
Zimbabwe     -279    
Ireland      -319    
Afghanistan  -351

The large correction I'm now making for home advantage means India's expected victory barely moves the needle.  Australia, howver, in spite of playing away, were still sufficiently favoured to be the team with higher expectations, and the increase in the k-factor means their defeat delivers them a bad blow, knocking this often mighty country down to an atypically low 6th place in the rankings.

Both series are now complete, so we can compare my rankings to the official ones:

India        116 +1
South Africa 106
England      105 
New Zealand  102 
Australia    102 -4
Sri Lanka     97
Pakistan      95 +8
West Indies   76 -1
Bangladesh    67 
Zimbabwe       2 

The ICC system doesn't yet include recent test debutantes Ireland and Afghanistan (it needs more data to be able to include them); is unsymetrical (gains of winning teams are not necessarily matched by equivalent losses of losing sides); and doesn't rate Sri Lanka nearly as highly as my system does.  Nonetheless, it still has Australia in a modest 5th position.   Australia were strong contenders to challenge for the number one spot, following their Ashes triumph last winter, but a cheating scandal and subsequent suspensions have for now halted their ambitions, and even England now stand ahead of them in both systems.  England are next in action in Sri Lanka in November; Zimbabwe visit Bangladesh in the same month.

Home Advantage, part 2

Recently, I've been playing around with trying to intorduce compensation for home advatage into my rating system.  I'd used past results to estimate that I needed to adjust the ratings of the home team by +41 to calculate the probabilities fairly, based on the overall difference between the win/loss record of sides at home and away.  But when I tested different adjustments to see which one gave made the ratings as predictive as possible, I found the answer was a relatively massive +74.  I don't quite understand that one yet.

Then, with the new adjustment in place, I re-tested to find the optimum k-factor. This also went up - from 32 to 43.  So, the ratings become more predictive if you let them consider home advantage, but also if you make them more sensitive to recent results.

And with this system in place, the ratings look as follows, with India already back in 1st position:

India         177    
South Africa  175   
Australia     161    
Sri Lanka     156   
England       149    
New Zealand   134    
Pakistan       81   
West Indies     7    
Bangladesh    -93    
Zimbabwe     -279    
Ireland      -319    
Afghanistan  -351

That's enough adjusmtent for now; let's see how things change in the ratings going forward.



 

Home Advantage

In the previous post, I explored how one might compensate for home advantage in the rating system.  I measured actual home advantage (which was surprisingly large) and adjusted the ratings; but the new ratings turned out to be worse predictors than the old!  How come?  The answer turns out to be a coding bug! Measured properly, home advantage is much less than I asserted: the home team's expected yield from a game is 0.573 points, not 0.775; and that corresponds to a ratings advantage of just 42.5 points, not the massive 178.5 points I was applying yesterday.  And when I use the correct factor, the predictivity of the ratings improves, with a cumulative error over all past test matches down to 1470 from 1510.  So what do the adjusted ratings look like? Here's the answer:

South Africa  174    
India         174    
Australia     165    
England       144    
Sri Lanka     133   
New Zealand   133    
Pakistan       68    
West Indies     5    
Bangladesh   -100    
Zimbabwe     -264    
Ireland      -301    
Afghanistan  -331

With this adjustment factor, Pakistan's recent draw with Australia gained Pakistan (and lost Australia) just 4 points: the prediction of a better results for the visitors (with their higher rating) partially offset by their home advantage. South Africa have been top since September; prior to that, India were top from August 2016.  This almost exactly reflects the "real" ratings, wherea similar change occured, albeit one match earlier.

So how do the two ranking systems differ in the longer term?  As we've discussed, the gap (in points) between any two teams has meaning, but the absolute scores less so. So one statistic we've looked at in the past is to ask, for every team that has ever held first place, what was the moment when it held that position by the greatest margin over the team in second place? Using the old rankings, our results were like this (showing also the period for which the team held the number 1 ranking):

Dec 1999    Nov 2009    Australia     Dec 2007    222
Mar 1885    Jan 1898    England       Aug 1890    198
Sep 1983    Dec 1991    West Indies   Jul 1986    172
Aug 2016    Aug 2018    India         Aug 2017    123
Nov 2012    Nov 2015    South Africa  Mar 2013     94
Jan 1983    Feb 1983    Pakistan      Jan 1983     22

Under the new system, the results are as follows:

Dec 1999    Dec 2008    Australia     Jan 2008    223
Dec 1884    Feb 1898    England       Aug 1890    195
Jun 1980    Jan 1992    West Indies   Nov 1984    170
Nov 2012    Nov 2015    South Africa  Mar 2013    109
Aug 2016    Sep 2018    India         Aug 2017    104

The timing of the peaks are nearly identical, although the periods each side's dominance lasted differ.  Most notably, the West Indies are rated as having been the world's best team for over a decade in the 1980s and early 1990s, and Pakistan's brief period marginally on top of the old rankings (the only ever time they were rated number one) has disappeared.  It's notable that India's recent peak is marked down, however; this reflects the fact it was based primarily on outstanding results at home.

Another question we can ask is if the new rankings more stably define teams in the number one spot.  This isn't necessarily a mark of improvement - we have no absolute standard to say who really was the best team in the world at a given point in time, and how often this has changed. In fact, there's almost no difference overall in terms of length of tenure at the top: the old system has had 93 different periods of leadership, and the new system 92.

Lastly, let's look at the what's happened since the turn of the millenium.  Firstly, under the old system:

Dec 1999    Nov 2009    Australia     Dec 2007    222
Nov 2009    Jan 2010    India         Dec 2009     31
Jan 2010    Jan 2010    Australia     Jan 2010      1
Jan 2010    Feb 2010    India         Feb 2010      3
Feb 2010    Feb 2010    Australia     Feb 2010     16
Feb 2010    Mar 2010    India         Feb 2010      1
Mar 2010    Aug 2010    Australia     Jul 2010     40
Aug 2010    Jul 2011    India         Oct 2010     59
Jul 2011    Feb 2012    England       Dec 2011     99
Feb 2012    Nov 2012    Australia     Mar 2012     33
Nov 2012    Nov 2015    South Africa  Mar 2013     94
Nov 2015    Aug 2016    Australia     Feb 2016     51
Aug 2016    Aug 2018    India         Aug 2017    123
Aug 2018    -           South Africa  Sep 2018     13


And under the new one:

Dec 1999    Dec 2008    Australia     Jan 2008    223
Dec 2008    Jan 2009    South Africa  Dec 2008      2
Jan 2009    Dec 2009    Australia     Mar 2009     68
Dec 2009    Dec 2009    India         Dec 2009     10
Dec 2009    Oct 2010    Australia     Jul 2010     56
Oct 2010    May 2011    India         Oct 2010     48 
May 2011    Jun 2011    England       May 2011      5
Jun 2011    Jul 2011    India         Jun 2011     19
Jul 2011    Feb 2012    England       Dec 2011     94
Feb 2012    Nov 2012    Australia     Jun 2012     27
Nov 2012    Nov 2015    South Africa  Mar 2013    109
Nov 2015    Nov 2015    Australia     Nov 2015      1
Nov 2015    Nov 2015    South Africa  Nov 2015      6
Nov 2015    Aug 2016    Australia     Feb 2016     45
Aug 2016    Sep 2018    India         Aug 2017    104 
Sep 2018    -           South Africa  Sep 2017      5


And if we ignore brief reigns of less than 2 months, the succession is Australia; India; Australia, India; England, Australia, South Africa, Australia, India, South Africa under both systems.  So although the transition periods from one dominant team to another have been handled differently, the stories are remarkably similar overall.

Finally, what's happened in the official ratings during this period? Data is available from June 2003 onwards:

Jun 2003    Jul 2009    Australia
Aug 2009    Nov 2009    South Africa
Nov 2009    Aug 2011    India
Aug 2011    Aug 2012    England
Aug 2012    May 2014    South Africa
May 2014    Jul 2014    Australia
Jul 2014    Jan 2016    South Africa 
Jan 2016    Feb 2016    India
Feb 2016    Aug 2016    Australia
Aug 2016    Aug 2016    India
Aug 2016    Oct 2016    Pakistan
Oct 2016    -           India


Overall, the offical ratings are more stable than mine, but also slower to react to recent results - India are still rated number one.  Ignoring very short periods, both my systems have Australia on top throughout most of 2010, in between two periods of India dominance, but this was a single period of Indian ascendency according to the ICC; also note that the ICC briefly had Pakistan in the top spot, which under my old system they have last held in 1983 and under my new system, never.  But overall there's a broad concordance.

But I like my new system, with it's improved predictive power, and compensation for the skew that comes with playing home or away.  I think I'm going to stick with it from now on.

Cricket World Ratings 11th October 2018

Two series of test cricket have got underway in the last week. Back at home, following their defeat in England, India smashed the West Indies.  Australia, meanwhile, dug themselves out of a hole to secure a draw in their match in the United Arab Emirates, which is still serving as a temporary home venue for Pakistan. The effect on my rankings is as follows:
 
South Africa  179
India         168 +9
Australia     159 -7
England       152
New Zealand   144
Sri Lanka     125 
Pakistan       47 +7 
West Indies     6 -9    
Bangladesh    -99 
Zimbabwe     -260
Ireland      -295
Afghanistan  -325

But one feature of my rankings is that they take no account of home advantage.  Teams with a winning streak at home always move up, even if this is only to be expected.  To draw in the U.A.E is arguably more of an achievement for Australia than Pakistan, but Australia have been penalised as the previously higher ranking team.

In the earliest posts on this blog, I explored how my ranking system works, with the ratings gap between the two teams used to predict a result, and then teams credited or penalised according to how much the actual results differ from the prediction.  But the default prediction takes no account of home advantage.  Can we change that?

Well, the first thing to do is to calculate the expected result for home sides.  We've been working on an assumption it's 0.5 (scoring 1 for a win and 0.5 for a draw).  In fact, it's much higher than that - over all test matches played, the home side averages 0.775 points per game, a much bigger skew than I expected. So how can we take advantage of this in the ratings system?  Amazingly, if there was no home advantage, a team would need to have a ratings gap of 178.5 points in its favour to expect such an outcome.

So if we temporarily shift the ratings of each team by such a margin to calculate the expected output we should correct for home advantage.  And we get a rather different set of scores:

India         235
Australia     224
South Africa  203
Sri Lanka     165
Pakistan      160
England       141
New Zealand   113
West Indies    -6     
Bangladesh   -142
Zimbabwe     -323
Ireland      -366
Afghanistan  -403


Most notably, India suffered in my usual ratings for losing at home to England, who gained notably; but in this revised system, England get fewer plaudits, and India suffer less punishment.  And Australia actually gained a little - rather than losing - from drawing in Pakistan.

One question we can ask is, which is the better predictor, the old method or the new one? One can calculate this by summing the difference of actual results from predicted ones (the same method we used to calculate the optimal k-factor). Rather disappointingly, it makes almost no difference - the sum of the errors actually goes up a little, from 1510 to 1512.

Might there be some other weighting for home advantage that will actually minimise the error?  This seems to be worth trying to calculate.Stay tuned...

Cricket World Ratings 11th September 2018

India have a fine cricket team at the moment: many great batsmen, led by the incomparable Virat Kohli, good spinners, and, alost uniquely in their history, a fine seam attack as well.  England have not had as good a time of it recently, with an absence of top quality spin (sadly, far from a unique occurance) and few batsmen consistently in the runs except for Cook and Root.  It therefore seems surprising that, even with a home advantage that discounts their disadvantage in spin bowling, England had wrapped up this five test series 3-1 with a game to spare, especially as Kohli has been magnificent and Cook and Root have contributed nothing: indeed, Cook has decided to retire on the back of his poor form. But the England lower order have saved the team; while aside from Kohli, the Indian batting from top to bottom has struggled in difficult conditions.  The final test promised to be an anticlimax, with the series decided; but instead it proved a sentimental classic.  Root returned to form, Cook top scored in the game and bowed out with a century in his final innings; a splendid Indian counter attack enlivened the last day, with a maiden century for Pant, a very bright talent; and Anderson wrapped things up with the last wicket to become the most profilic fast bowler in test match history.  The 4-1 scoreline does India little justice; we can note England won all five tosses. With Cook's departure England need, more than ever, to find some new top order talent.  Those four defeats, however, have hurt India in my world ratings, and knocked them off top spot: you might not want to bet against them reclaiming it at some point in future, especially once they return to home soil.
  
South Africa  179  
Australia     166
India         159 -19
England       152 +20
New Zealand   144
Sri Lanka     125 
Pakistan       40  
West Indies    15    
Bangladesh    -99 
Zimbabwe     -260
Ireland      -295
Afghanistan  -325

The official ratings are less drastically modified, with India retaining the top spot, although otherwise the order is the same:

India        115 -10
South Africa 106
Australia    106
England      105 +10 
New Zealand  102
Sri Lanka     97
Pakistan      88
West Indies   77 
Bangladesh    67 
Zimbabwe       2 

India are in action in the next test to be played as well; the West Indies will visit them in October.

Cricket World Ratings 3rd September 2018

England's series with India continues to be a tight, and mostly low-scoring, affair.  With home advantage, and four won tosses, England have now secured victory, with one match still to play: notably, the only game they lost, they chose contraversially to field first.  In recent seasons, England have really struggled with their top order, and in this series this has been true more than ever; but other than the great Virat Kohli, few in the Indian team have scored runs consistently either.  However, for Alastair Cook, a very lean year has led to his decision to retire from test cricket. It's another hole for England to fill, albeit that at the moment, Cook hasn't looked like contributing very much in any of his innings.


In victory, England have made much of the fact that they've beaten the best team in the world; but in my world ratings, which are less stable than the offical ones, they've already lost this honour, for the first time since August 2016, and South Africa, who were last top in November 2015, have replaced them. The standings are as follows:
 
South Africa  179
India         178 -22
Australia     166  
New Zealand   144
England       132 +22 
Sri Lanka     125  
Pakistan       40  
West Indies    15    
Bangladesh    -99 
Zimbabwe     -260
Ireland      -295

Cricket World Ratings 23rd August 2018

The famous Ashes series of 2005 turned when a confident Australian side made an ill-fated decision to put England into bat first in the second test, fancying that England's batsmen would embarras themselves, as they had done in the previous match.  They didn't, and England won the series.  Now, in England's current series against India, the hosts have surrendered their initiative in a similar fashion, although they presently retain a series lead.  The series is turning out to be a contest between two flawed sides: England can, as usual, bowl well in English conditions; for once, India also have a strong seam attack; but few players on either side look capable of batting well, Virat Kolhi the most notable exception.  England remain series favourites, but to complete a victory, they're surely going to need to discover some batsmen able to score runs. A defeat in the the third test would have knocked India off the top of my world rankings: as it is, they have extended their lead, though it's still not guaranteed to survive the series.

India         200 +13
South Africa  179  
Australia     166  
New Zealand   144
Sri Lanka     125  
England       110 -13  
Pakistan       40  
West Indies    15    
Bangladesh    -99 
Zimbabwe     -260
Ireland      -295
Afghanistan  -325

Cricket World Ratings 14th August 2018

India have been very strong over the last couple of years, but mainly playing at home; now they've followed a narrow away defeat to South Africa with two straight losses in England.  The greatest teams win home and away; but India now seem unlikely to assert their greatness on this tour, although with three matches still to be played, there's always the (unlikely) possibility of a truly world-class fightback.  Credit must go to England's evergreen bowler James Anderson, still a master of his art at the age of 36, though England's reliance on swing bowlers like Anderson is their own weakness in many parts of the world.  The complete failure of India's supposedly talented batting line up, meanwhile, has to be considered a major diappointment; save captain Kohli, they've hardly scored a run in the first two tests.

For the moment, India remain atop my world ratings, though this status will surely not survive a third consecutive defeat:

India         187 -23
South Africa  179  
Australia     166  
New Zealand   144
Sri Lanka     125  
England       123 +23  
Pakistan       40  
West Indies    15    
Bangladesh    -99 
Zimbabwe     -260
Ireland      -295
Afghanistan  -325

Cricket World Ratings 7th August 2018

Recently, Sri Lanka won at home against Sri Lanka; now, England have won their first test at home against India.  It was a close win in a gripping game where Virat Kohli was the standout player but couldn't quite swing things for his side.  It's another demonstration of how much a team's results depend on whether they are playing at home; for this Indian team, there are still four tests to go to prove that they are a great side, that can be fully competitive in unfamilliar conditions, and not merely a good one.  England will lack Ben Stokes for their next game - the violent incident that led to him missing last winter's Ashes series is finally now at trial.  Meanwhile, England's win has changed my world ratings without overturning the pecking order.

India         210 -26
South Africa  179  
Australia     166  
New Zealand   144
Sri Lanka     125  
England       100 +26  
Pakistan       40  
West Indies    15    
Bangladesh    -99 
Zimbabwe     -260
Ireland      -295
Afghanistan  -325

Cricket World Ratings 24th July 2018

Sri Lanka have just completed a 2-0 victory at home to South Africa; the latter are a strong side, but it seem it's really hard for teams not from south Asia to win there, and this result continues the pattern.  My world ratings now look like this:

India         236  
South Africa  179 -23 
Australia     166  
New Zealand   144
Sri Lanka     125 +23 
England        74  
Pakistan       40  
West Indies    15    
Bangladesh    -99 
Zimbabwe     -260
Ireland      -295
Afghanistan  -325

The official version looks like this:

India        125
South Africa 106 -6
Australia    106
New Zealand  102 
England       97
Sri Lanka     97 +6
Pakistan      88
West Indies   77 
Bangladesh    67 
Zimbabwe       2 

The next series will be interesting: can a strong Indian side repeat its mostly home success, away in England?  There's a full five test series for them, and us, to find out, starting on the 1st August.

Cricket World Ratings 17th July 2018

3 test matches have been played recently, and all have ended in comprehensive victories for the home teams, even though in theory the games might have been expected to be close. West Indies have beaten Bangladesh twice; a strong South African team has nonetheless lost its first game in Sri Lanka (there's one more match scheduled in this series).  The latest version of my cricket world ratings are as follows:

India         236  
South Africa  202 -25 
Australia     166  
New Zealand   144
Sri Lanka     102 +25 
England        74  
Pakistan       40  
West Indies    15 +26   
Bangladesh    -99 -26 
Zimbabwe     -260
Ireland      -295
Afghanistan  -325

Technically, this is Sri Lanka's highest ever rating; though as discussed previously, that has a lot to do with the fact that the rating is zeroed on the average test team, and two new (and presumed poor) sides have recently been given test status. Still, it's a strong 5th place for a side usually found towards the back of the pack.

The official version looks like this:

India        125
South Africa 112
Australia    106
New Zealand  102 
England       97
Sri Lanka     91
Pakistan      88
West Indies   77 +5 
Bangladesh    67 -8  
Zimbabwe       2 

The West Indies have swapped places with Bangladesh following their series victory.

Once South Africa go home, the Indians will tour England; then that's it for test cricket until November.