There’s been a lot of action in international cricket
recently: every team with the exception of Bangladesh has been in action, and with the effect of a change in the
rating order. Since I started keeping
track of test match cricket results using an Elo-style system, most of the
matches played have ended in fairly predictable outcomes, but some of the
recent matches have produced some surprises.
The first big shock came in Australia’s tour of Sri Lanka. After a run of 11 undefeated games helped put
Australia into first place both in my rankings and the official world ratings,
Sri Lanka won all three tests in their recent contest. This is all the more remarkable as Sri Lanka
have a wretched record against Australia in general – in fact, prior to this
series, they’d only won one test against them ever (and they’ve been playing
test cricket since 1982). In the first
match, young batsmen Mendis (who was promising in the side’s recent tour of
England) and veteran spinner Herath helped deliver a victory as the team
recovered from an appalling start. In
the second game, Herath even took a hat-trick, while his colleague Perera
collected most wickets overall. The
third test was more competitive but the eventual result less surprising. Even at their peak, Australia have often
looked weak in the Indian subcontinent, but these to lose three times in a row
is poor for a side that had been beginning to assert itself at the head of
cricket’s pecking order. And indeed,
Australia’s erstwhile dominance was not so strong that it could necessarily be
presumed to withstand such results.
And for a while, it wasn’t clear which of three other teams
might take Australia’s lead. India could
cement that position with a good win over the West Indies, but (because of the
West Indies’ poor rating) needed a convincing set of results. If England could see off Pakistan, the team
would actually have beaten every other test side more recently than they’d lost
to them, and would go top. But a drawn
series, or a series win for Pakistan, could have allowed Pakistan to take the
top spot if India failed to win by a sufficiently convincing margin. This whole blog is about my alternative
system for ranking teams, and under this system, the calculations are slightly
different; but it’s a fairly clear fact that no team is dominant in test match
cricket right now, meaning that the top place would be subject to contest under
any reasonable system.
And India’s hopes might have seemed to have been fading as
their series against the West Indies unfurled.
They’d won the first test, and in the second, wickets from Ashwin (one
of a number of contenders for the title of the world’s best bowler right now),
and runs for Rahul and Rahane, saw India into a commanding position; but Roston
Chase, who’d previously taken five wickets, scored a splendid undefeated
century to secure a draw for the home side.
In the third test, the West Indies made a good start, and, although
their position weakened, rain looked as if it may have saved them. In the event, India sealed a win to take a
2-0 series lead, and to retain their own chances of taking the number one spot. But rain wiped out the final test, restricting India's opportunities to gain in the ratings.
There were no shocks in New Zealand’s tour of Zimbabwe,
where the visitors have won the first two tests by a crushing margin (thought
this has little effect on the top of the rankings). New Zealand have since
headed south to South Africa, where the first test was rained off. Just one more test awaits in this series.
England and Pakistan’s battle as arguably been more
interesting: the third test saw the hosts recover from a poor start through a
fine team effort, but in the fourth, the Pakistanis took control again and
England count not return. England’s
eventual defeat saw the series drawn 2-2, and, as Pakistan won when the two
teams last met, England’s hopes of a clean sweep of pairwise victories
dashed. England have many talented
players (especially all-rounders) but a chronic shortage of frontline batsmen:
in the series, five Pakistani specialist batsmen have made scores in excess of
70, whereas just Cook and Root have managed this among England’s supposed lead
batsmen. As spin bowling is another
England weakness, and a tour to India awaits, it could be a while before
England get another chance to go top. As
for Pakistan, their batting hero of the first test was 42 year-old Misbah
ul-Haq, while in the final test, a double century was scored by 38 year-old
Younis Khan. It’s probably the last time
we’ll see this pair on a cricket ground in England, but they depart on a high.
One issue which I have not extensively discussed yet on this
blog is home advantage. Has Australia
lost to Sri Lanka at home that would have been an even more dramatic shock;
Pakistan will be delighted to have drawn in England; India have a long series
of home games coming up which represent a good opportunity to assert themselves
in first position. Players tend to
develop the skills needed to flourish under the conditions they most often
face; the advantage of playing at home is substantial. Though I haven’t done
the maths, it’s possible that identifying which side is playing at home is as
good an indicator of the eventual result of a game as any complex analysis of
prior results. One certainly might seek to build this factor into a system,
although neither my system nor the official one takes account of this at present.
So, after all this action, how do the teams rate? Firstly, under my system, the current ratings
are as follows:
India 110 -3
Australia 93 -73
Pakistan 93 +2
England 89 -2
South Africa 75 -1
Sri Lanka 52 +73
New Zealand 50 +7
West Indies -69 +15
Bangladesh -172
Zimbabwe -320 -5
While under the official system, India went top for 5 days,
but after their final match against the West Indies was rained off, Pakistan
nudged ahead of them:
Pakistan 111
India 110
Australia 108
England 108
New Zealand 99
Sri Lanka 95
South Africa 92
West Indies 67
Bangladesh 57
Zimbabwe 8
So there is actually a difference between the answers
produced by the two systems, although both agree that there isn’t much to
choose between the top sides. The
similarity of the absolute ratings, however, is wholly accidental, although it’s
worth noting that India’s current rating of 110 (in my system) is one of the
lowest ratings ever for a team in first place: the last time that the best
rating was this low was in 1999, when South Africa and Australia were jousting
for the number 1 spot (and when Bangladesh were not yet a test team, which is
important, as the ratings are adjusted so that the mean strength is zero). One way of looking at this is that we’re currently
lacking any great test sides. But
another view is that the top rung of international cricket has rarely been this
competitive, with very little to choose between the top four teams in
particular. Still India, with their forthcoming home series, have to be the favourites
to be on top in a few months time.
