Still no whitewash, but a good series for England

Thanks to rain, the final test between England and Sri Lanka ended in a draw, though the home side had the better of the match.  For England, their last whitewash victory was in 2004, so it's been a long wait and one that will continue.  The three-match series still ended in a 2-0 win, and generally the home side's performances were good, albeit under favourable conditions.  The middle order of the batting lineup still seems quite unsettled, however.  Sri Lanka got better as the series went on but in general, an inexperienced side looked out of its depth in an English early season.

So under my system, the current ratings for the test sides are as follows:

Australia     166    
India         116   
Pakistan       93    
England        89    -6
South Africa   76    
New Zealand    43    
Sri Lanka     -21    +7
West Indies   -75    
Bangladesh   -172   
Zimbabwe     -315

 With England having been favourites to win, the draw costs them a few points and they drop marginally back behind Pakistan in the ratings. These two sides will meet, of course, in the second half of the English summer.  Sri Lanka return home to face Australia, while India will tour the West Indies, so the top four sides will all be in action in the next couple of months.

 And just for some contrast (which isn't very much contrast at all), here are the current ICC ratings:

Australia     118   
India         112  
Pakistan      111   
England       108   
New Zealand    98
South Africa   92     
Sri Lanka      85   
West Indies    65   
Bangladesh     57  
Zimbabwe       12

The normal provisos (i.e. that the numbers are not strictly compatible) apply,  The only difference in the order is that New Zealand rate above South Africa in the ICC list.  In fact, the England-Sri Lanka series hasn't changed the order of the ICC list at all, whereas in my list, England have gained a place (removing a previous point of difference). For what it's worth, the series win gained England 3 points in ICC score (and cost Sri Lanka the same ammount), whereas on my scale, England are now 18 points up after the three games.

Cricket world ratings, 30/5/2016

So the second of England’s three tests against Sri Lanka is now also over, with another win for the home side.  The Sri Lankan team is young, inexperienced and unfamiliar with English conditions; the retirements of Sangakkara and Jayawardene were two huge losses.  But at least the second test saw the Sri Lankans put up a bit of fight in the second innings, and they could be competitive at Lord’s if the conditions aren’t so friendly to swing bowlers.  Speaking of swing bowlers, Jimmy Anderson has made the perfect response to his poor series in South Africa, taking 18 wickets in two tests.  This doesn’t prove he can still be competitive in less favourable environments, but you can only work with the chances you have, and he’s scarcely bowled a bad ball so far this summer.

So the latest rankings show a further small adjustment:

Australia    166    

India        116    

England       95 +11

Pakistan      93

South Africa  76    

New Zealand   43    

Sri Lanka    -28 -11

West Indies  -75    

Bangladesh  -172    

Zimbabwe    -315

But England’s progress would be more-or-less undone if Sri Lanka manage a consolation victory to end the series.  Equally, three out of three is worthy of credit against any opponents.  In any case, Pakistan (who England have just now overtaken) will surely provide a sterner test.

And we're off!

And it’s over already.  In under three days (two counting for losses to rain), England have beaten Sri Lanka in the first test.  The previous note about home advantage was actually written with the match already underway, but the end of the game only confirms the point: on a seaming English wicket, an inexperienced Sri Lankan side looked out of its depth. For England, the big plusses were a superb innings from Jonny Bairstow (as Alastair Cook noted, it looked as if he was playing on a different wicket to everybody else), and a 10-wicket haul for Jimmy Anderson, on a ground (Headingly in Leeds) where you might have expected him to have flourished in the past, but which has in fact been pretty barren for him until now.  After England’s series in South Africa, some were murmuring that Anderson, England’s longest serving player, might be in decline.  On one hand, this was an easy challenge for him.  On the other, he really looked good, pitching the ball on the spot and getting it to move off it with great consistency.

One feature of my ratings is that they change every match (the ICC ratings only change on completion of a series), so we can look directly to see the changes:

 1. Australia     166        

 2. India         116        

 3. Pakistan       93          

 4. England        84 +13

 5. South Africa   76          

 6. New Zealand    43       

 7. Sri Lanka     -17 -13

 8. West Indies   -75      

 9. Bangladesh   -172      

10. Zimbabwe     -315

England were favourites so they improve only slightly, but in the tight bunch of teams, they yo-yo up past South Africa for the second time in a few months (defeat in the final test of last winter having cost them this position).  One can also note that the gap between England and Sri Lanka has now widened to over 100 points (a 100 point difference having been used to calibrate the system as an expected result from each match of 2/3). The change moves my ratings a little closer to the ICC’s list; now only the relative position of South Africa and New Zealand differs between the two charts.

Fortunes can change quickly in cricket, but on the basis of this display, a subjective expectation is that England’s advantage is more than the numbers suggest going into the next match.

A summer of cricket

The late winter and early spring have seen no test cricket; they have seen the 20-20 World Cup, in which West Indies beat England in an unexpected final.  Now, however, the English “summer” is getting underway, with a short series scheduled in which the home team will play Sri Lanka.  Pakistan will visit later in the summer.  In terms of my ratings, Pakistan (93) and England (71) are quite close together; Sri Lanka (-4) are somewhat further behind.  England’s predicted outcome from a game against Sri Lanka based on this difference in ratings is 0.63; remember, a difference of 100 is calibrated to mean an expected outcome of 0.67, or a 2-1 or 1-0 result in a 3 match series.  Sri Lanka have a tough series against Australia to follow (although they’ll be back at home for this one).

Pakistan of course beat England in the winter, but England may be confident with home advantage (obviously we’ll have to see how the Sri Lanka series goes first).  England may also be confident having just beaten South Africa away (although the brief ascendency they had over South Africa in the rankings was quickly given up when South Africa won the last, consolation test).  This raises a big question about the rankings: they give equal credit to all results, failing to take account of home advantage.  This is also a factor in the ICC ratings, however, which equally do not take venue into account.

One last thing to do before this summer’s games get played is to compare with my ratings (which were listed in my last post) and compare these to the current offical ratings, which are as follows:

1.  Australia    118

2.  India        112

3.  Pakistan     111

4.  England      105

5.  New Zealand   98

6.  South Africa  92

7.  Sri Lanka     88

8.  West Indies   65

9.  Bangladesh    57

10. Zimbabwe      12

So the order is very similar, with the main difference being that South Africa, who remained on top in that system for longer than they did in mine, have now fallen further.  Also, Australia appear more dominant according to my ratings than they do in the ICC’s.  But both systems give a similar pointer to the summer’s matches.  Whether things go as expected we’ll have to wait and see.

Test Cricket World Ratings 26/2/2106

Coming into their recent series against New Zealand, Australia were already top of my world ratings; but only in second place in the ICC's.  And their opponents had home advantage, and their own rating (on my system) was the highest it had ever been.  It could have been a tough pair of matches for Australia: instead, they've finished the series with two comfortable wins.  Indeed, the second match was notable for the fact that Brendon McCullum scored a brilliant century for his team, New Zealand made over 700 runs in the match, and still they lost comfortably by 7 wickets.  One sign of a strong team is that they sometimes roll their opposition over, as Australia did in the first test; another sign is that even when the opposition don't do so badly, they still get crushed in the end.  This was a strong performance from Australia and now even the ICC agree with me in putting Australia in the number one spot, displacing an Indian team that held that honour briefly but didn't even get to play a match before losing it again.  Australia have had a very good run since losing the Ashes to England last summer; they could be top of the ratings for some time.  For New Zealand, however, thing now look less rosy, especially with the talented McCullum calling it a day.

So here are the latest ratings in my system: 

Australia     166  +11
India         116    
Pakistan       93    
South Africa   76    
England        71    
New Zealand    43  -11
Sri Lanka      -4    
West Indies   -75   
Bangladesh   -172    
Zimbabwe     -315

Australia's two wins have almost doubled their lead over India, which is now a decent 50 points.  Note that the series neatly indicates one way the rankings work.  Australia's first win increased their rating by 13 points (and decreased New Zealand's by the same margin): this meant a better result was predicted for the second test, so when that victory came, it was only worth +/- 11 points.

This blog might be quiet for a while as there's now a gap in the test cricket program before Sri Lanka tour England early next summer.  England followed up their win over Australia with a defeat (against Pakistan) and a victory (against South Africa) on their winter tours. Sri Lanka's highest ever ranking was 95 in 2009; a current ranking of -4 is disappointing, given that the presence in test cricket Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, two historically weak sides, reduce the quality of the average rating represented by zero. But this state of play means, of course, that England will be fancied to win.  Note, however, that England's 75 point margin is less than the 95 point gap (in the opposite direction) that now separates them from last summer's victims.