Under two years ago, England and Pakistan were among the teams fighting it out for the title of best in the world, since when, they've both had a pretty torrid time. Now Pakistan return to England, and, in spite of the disadvantage of having to play under English conditions in May, they've won the first test clearly. England seem in disarry, unable to find players with confidence or ability.
In spite of this, England's nominal ranking in my ratings system is improved - because of another match that Pakistan have played, a game in which they beat Ireland. This was Ireland's first ever test match. My ratings system (i) measures differences in performance between teams, not absolute performance (ii) is arbitrarily zeroed on the mean of all teams and (iii) enters a new team in the system at the previously lowest rating, then adjusting the ratings of all existing teams to keep the zero point. It's not a bad metric, but the addition of a new side gives everyone else an immediate boost in nominal score. The point to remember is that the difference in rating between two sides is what is designed to indicate the win probability - so if the gap is 100, that's the same whether or not we're talking about 200-100 or 125-25. But the change has had the slightly odd effect of giving Bangladesh, for example, their highest ever rating under the system.
So the current ratings are as follows: England will be very keen to arrest their downward slide, but it's hard to see too many signs of hope.
India 206 +32
South Africa 197 +32
Australia 137 +32
New Zealand 115 +32
Sri Lanka 61 +32
Pakistan 28 +55
England 27 +12
West Indies -54 +32
Bangladesh -103 +32
Zimbabwe -289 +33
Ireland -325
