After losing their first game against South Africa by an innings, England have retaliated with an even more emphatic victory of their own. The finale is eagerly awaited, athough based on the first two games, it may be over rather quickly. Although South Africa began with the higher rating, home advantage made England favourites at the start of the series: their win thus recovers most, but not all of the ground lost in their prior defeat:.
Following a dreadful run, England came back fighting this summer, winning 4 games in a row from what seemed like lost positions with some marvellous counter-attacking cricket. But their latest series against South Africa has begun with a hefty dose of reality, as the team crumbled in 3 days against their visitors' mighty seam attack.
Sri Lanka have recently played 2 short series at home, against first Australia and then Pakistan; and in both cases, they responded to defeat in their first test by winning their second. The victory over Pakistan has exactly undone the effect of their previous defeat in my rankings, returning both teams to exactly where they were before either match. Another way of putting this is that Pakistan's prior lead of 49 points almost exactly offset their disadvantage of playing away: a drawn series was the expected result.
Sri Lanka have just won a great victory over Australia, and now they entertain Pakistan; but the visitors finished their first test strongly to grab the win. My world ratings now look like this:
Australia's form has been pretty good recently, and they won their first game on their tour of Sri Lanka, but their hosts have just got a convincing victory in the second game to level the series. The effect on my world ratings is to restore India, by default, to first place, in spite of their recent loss to England:
England's recent revival has now delivered it's fourth, and most surprising, victory. In an extra test against India (technically the last test of last year's series, which was postponed due to COVID-19), England have pulled off their fourth consecutive, and historically largest, run chase, again at a very rapid rate of scoring. Meanwhile, Australia have won the first of their two scheduled matches in Sri Lanka. My world ratings now look like this, with Australia going top:
