Thursday, 28 June 2018

Cricket World Ratings 28th June 2018

The once mighty West Indies have been in a bad way for some years now, but had seemed on the verge of a rare series win in their tour of Sri Lanka: they'd won the first test, drawn the second and took a good first innings lead in the third.  But a second innings batting collapse was to deny them, and Sri Lanka have drawn the series to stay above England in the world ratings.The two teams now move onto their next series: West Indies entertain Bangldesh, while Sri Lanka need to host the South Africans.

India         236  
South Africa  227 
Australia     166  
New Zealand   144
Sri Lanka      77 +14 
England        74  
Pakistan       40  
West Indies   -11 +14   
Bangladesh    -73  
Zimbabwe     -260
Ireland      -295
Afghanistan  -325

In the official ratings, update only with the series' end, West Indies have benefitted from the drawn overall, and Sri Lanka have suffered a bit.  In this list, Sri Lanka remain behind England; but the West Indies continue to trail Bangladesh, though they have a chance to change this in their forthcoming matches.  Test cricket's recent debutants, Ireland and Afghanistan, haven't yet played enoigh cricket to get an official rating.

India        125
South Africa 112

Australia    106
New Zealand  102 
England       97
Sri Lanka     91 -3
Pakistan      88
Bangladesh    75  
West Indies   72 +5    
Zimbabwe       2 

Tuesday, 19 June 2018

Cricket World Ratings 20th June 2018

England won their second test against Pakistan.  It's a much needed win after a terrible run, but Pakistan have now drawn their last two series in England.  England have been much less competitive in Pakistan's adopted home of the United Arab Emirates (where they play due to security concerns in their real homeland), where the team have been regularly well beaten.

Meanwhile, the West Indies won their first game in Sri Lanka, and drew their second; and Afghanistan have been admitted to test cricket, playing (and losing) their first match against India.  As I discussed in my last post, when Ireland were admitted, my ratings measure each team's superiority (or otherwise) to an average test team, and newcomers are assumed to rate at the bottom; so these two new admissions have sent everybody else's score upwards, which is not ideal, but there's no absolute scale to measure cricketing achievement: you have to zero the ratings somewhere.

So the current charts are as follows:

India         236 +30 
South Africa  227 +30  
Australia     166 +29  
New Zealand   144 +29 
England        74 +47
Sri Lanka      63  +2    
Pakistan       40 +12 
West Indies     3 +57  
Bangladesh    -73 +40 
Zimbabwe     -260 +29
Ireland      -295 +30
Afghanistan  -325

The official ratings don't include unfinished series (Sri Lanka and West Indies still have a game to play); don't yet include the two new nations; and undergo an annual revision which introduces some discontinuities; so there are some differences, although the top seven teams are the same in both cases.  It's notable that in the official lists, Bangladesh, who've had a scattering of decent results in the last couple of years, now rate quite clearly above the once mighty West Indies:

India        125 +4
South Africa 112 -5

Australia    106 +4
New Zealand  102 
England       97
Sri Lanka     94 -1
Pakistan      88
Bangladesh    75 +4  
West Indies   67 -5    
Zimbabwe       2 +1