COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc with the international cricket calendar; a recent England tour of South Africa was called out after several players tested positive. In the Antipodes, the disease thankfully appears reasonably under control; and the West Indies recently toured New Zealand, recording two heavy defeats for their trouble. India, now in Australia, started their first test rather better; but a spectacular collapse handed victory to the hosts. Which serves to reinforce Australia's current status as the number one team in my world ratings, increasing their margin over their visitors, still their closest challengers. The current ratings now look like this:
The official ratings (which won't incorporate results from the series in Australia until its completion) are similar, but they do show New Zealand in a very strong position (and New Zealand have never been top before, but they're very close to assuming that position, although I don't know if any result from the Australian-Indian series would put them there). The offical ratings also undergo periodic updating based on the passage of time (and not just matches), so they show some adjustments even for teams that have not played recently:
In theory there's a lot of cricket due in the next month:three more tests for India in Australia, Pakistan go to New Zealand, while Sri Lanka go to South Africa then return home to host England.
No comments:
Post a Comment