Cricket World Ratings 26/7/2016

There are three interesting series taking place at the moment.  Most interesting, perhaps, is England's attempt to exploit home advantage and take revenge on Pakistan, who defeated them last winter.  England and Pakistan are clearly two of the world's top five teams right now.  Indeed, after Pakistan won the first test, and England the second, the two have converged on exactly the same ranking.  Both teams have only a few form batsmen: England won the second test after their two stars, Cook and Root, came good, the latter with a double hundred.  England have the better seam attack, but Pakistan's Yasir Shah is clearly the best spinner (indeed, after he took 10 wickets in the first test, he displaced England's Anderson as the world's highest ranked bowler). With two tests still to come, there's still a lot to play for, although right now England look favourites.

The other battles are less interesting.  Australia start their visit to Sri Lanka with a ranking 187 points higher than their hosts; India have a ranking 205 points better than the West Indies.  In each case, the weaker team is at home, but these are big margins.  The nice thing about an Elo-style rating system is that these margins actually mean something, and what a difference of 205 means is an expected value of 0.805 for India per game - or in effect, a prediction of a 4-1 victory in a 5 game series.  India have duly won the first test by a big margin, with Virat Kohli scoring (like Root for England) a double hundred, and wickets for Ravichandran Ashwin (who has therbey successed Yasir at the top of the bowling rankings after only one match).  The series prediction looks pretty good right right now: the home side (who won the T20 world cup this winter) are surely capable of winning a test, but a West Indian victory in the series would be remarkable (and might have been thought of as such even before this disastrous start).

Australia begin against Sri Lanka today; the inexperienced Sri Lankans, recently defeated by England, may also find home advantage inadequate.

So here are the latest rankings.  England have gained more from beating Pakistan than India have gained from their well-expected victory. But the next few weeks could see quite a lot of movement as all three series progress.

Australia     166    
India         123  +7 
England        91 +19 
Pakistan       91 -19  
South Africa   76    
New Zealand    43    
Sri Lanka     -21   
West Indies   -82  -7   
Bangladesh   -172    
Zimbabwe     -315

A tanatalising start to a promising series

The test series between England and Pakistan certainly seems like an enticing prospect, as England's mercurial young team seeks revenge on a side who beat them last winter.  England have strong bowling but a thin batting line-up: Pakistan have a legspinner in Yasir (always a rarity to see in England), Mohammad Amir (back from a lengthy ban after his involvement in match-fixing whilst only a teenager), and in Younis Khan and Misbah ul-Haq, the two oldest batsmen still playing international cricket.  And in both my ratings and the official world ratings, the vistors and the home side started the series in 3rd and 4th places respectively, with almost nothing to choose between them.  And on Saturday, I was there, watching an absorbing day's cricket in a close match in which Pakistan were almost continuously in front, but never by much.  In the end, Yasir's spin was probably the difference between the two sides.  England, still without Anderson and Stokes, will get better, but pulling this one back is going to need some batsmen finally finding some form.

So in the ratings we see England lose a place, with ground to make up in the remaing three matches.  Before long, Sri Lanka will host Australia, West Indies host India, and New Zealand travel to Zimbabwe, so there's a lot at stake over the next few weeks.  But Pakistan have drunk the first blood of the high summer.


Australia     166    
India         116    
Pakistan      110 +17  
South Africa   76    
England        72 -17  
New Zealand    43    
Sri Lanka     -21    
West Indies   -75    
Bangladesh   -172    
Zimbabwe     -315

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.