Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

England up to third in the ODI rankings, but it's very tight between 1 (South Africa) and 5 (Australia), with an India/SA series to go, and a couple more England/Australia games, then five games between England and New Zealand (one of whom will be third and the other fourth by the time that series is played, regardless of other results).

If England lose their remaining two games against Australia, they'll be down to 4th, just one point ahead of Australia. Even if they win both games, they stay third. This seems bizarre - since the start of 2016, England have a win-loss record in the format of 29:9, have won 7 of 9 bilateral series (and the only two they lost were by a single match), including their last five bilateral series on the bounce. They've lost two of their last 21 games. They've beaten the number one side in a bilateral series. And yet third (albeit close)? Only a couple of points ahead of Australia, who've lost their last three bilateral series and didn't register a single win in the Champions Trophy?

Sometimes I don't understand the rankings at all.

I think at the end of the English season, a round of results from three years ago are dropped (more or less), so England will shoot up then.

As a counterbalance to England's success in bilateral series, they did fold in the Champion's Trophy.

England's record since the last WC- home before the team, away after. England's score first.

3-2... New Zealand... N/A
2-3... Australia ...3-0*
4-1... Pakistan ...3-1
2-1...South Africa... 2-3
3-0... Sri Lanka... N/A
N/A... Bangladesh... 2-1
N/A... India ...1-2
4-0... West Indies ...3-0

Against the five sides they will be competing with at the WC and the top of the rankings, that's won: 5, lost: 3. Plus add four series wins v BD, WI and SL

Arthur Crabtree wrote:England's record since the last WC- home before the team, away after. England's score first.

3-2... New Zealand... N/A
2-3... Australia ...3-0*
4-1... Pakistan ...3-1
2-1...South Africa... 2-3
3-0... Sri Lanka... N/A
N/A... Bangladesh... 2-1
N/A... India ...1-2
4-0... West Indies ...3-0

Against the five sides they will be competing with at the WC and the top of the rankings, that's won: 5, lost: 3. Plus add four series wins v BD, WI and SL

Well there's one explanation - I thought the rankings only stretched back two years rather than three (although is there weighting for more recent results)?

I'm not sure I'd say 'fold' in the Champion's Trophy. They lost in the semis to the eventually winners. In terms of win-loss records for the tournament: Pakistan 4-1, England 3-1, India 3-2, South Africa 1-2, Bangladesh 1-2, Sri Lanka 1-2, Australia 0-1, New Zealand 0-2. I'd argue England had the second-best performance in the competition behind Pakistan.

If England beat Australia in at least one of the two remaining games and win the series in New Zealand, they could go second or even top depending on the magnitude of the NZ series win and the results between India and South Africa.

On the other hand, lose the remaining two games to Australia and lose v New Zealand, and they could go down as low as 5th, behind Australia. That still seems wrong based on the last couple of years.

Ranking looks ok to me, if anything the odi ranking is more accurate than the test one considering no real home or away advantage exist.
The position doesn’t really matter the point do and a ranking around 116 is high.
It just that at the moment not really much separate the top odi team, no real stand out team.
Plus none of the stand out teams whitewash each other they all generally losing games as well.
If results are 3-2 or 2-1 the rankings won’t really go up much.
Personally the rankings are probably something like this at the moment.
England 1
India 2
Sa 3
Nz 4
Aus 5
Not really much separates England or India and probably sa at the moment.
Pak even won the champions trophy and they had to manufacture they place into the competition.

Fluffy see my post above yours, when the rankings are tight I think the number of points matters more than the ranking.
Can’t really remember the last time loads of teams were bunched around 116 points.
Got to remember generally after every lost games a team lose a point or two.
So if their literally nothing between teams a lost series could mean a droPping of two places likewise a win can see them go top.
Personally if your ranking is above 115 you win a lot more games that you lose.
A ranking of 100 is an 1-1 ratio and below that are teams that lose a lot more than win.
Believe any ranking above 110 is generally meant to be a very good team.

Looking at the ranking 5 teams are above 110 and the rest below 100.
Although not really sure how aus are above 110 after they horrer run in the last two years.
They must have been really good around the 2015 World Cup although they did whitewash India at homes before so that probably did help.
Nothing much between the other 4 teams some very high rankings.

Compare the odi rankings to the test rankings and you will see why even with top results england are 4th or 5th.
If england got the same odi results in test they would be 2nd.
Sa got 111 points in test, 3rd is 104.
So at the moment in test you only need to be a team that wins 50% of the time and they are a top 3 team in odi that wouldn’t get you in 5th place.

bigfluffylemon wrote:

Arthur Crabtree wrote:England's record since the last WC- home before the team, away after. England's score first.

3-2... New Zealand... N/A
2-3... Australia ...3-0*
4-1... Pakistan ...3-1
2-1...South Africa... 2-3
3-0... Sri Lanka... N/A
N/A... Bangladesh... 2-1
N/A... India ...1-2
4-0... West Indies ...3-0

Against the five sides they will be competing with at the WC and the top of the rankings, that's won: 5, lost: 3. Plus add four series wins v BD, WI and SL

Well there's one explanation - I thought the rankings only stretched back two years rather than three (although is there weighting for more recent results)?

Could be wrong about three years, I didn't look it up. Just what I thought it was.

basically the last two year data is worth 50% of it and the the recent 12-24 months is 100% so at may 1st only 12 months of results is worth 100 percent and only 3 yrs of data collected in the april of the year a full 4 yrs worth of data collected both 24 month each between 50% and 100% of data.

in test that is mostly why india results in the ranking fluctuate so much.
they generally lose a lot while being a very high ranking and lose to low ranking teams as well so lose *modded* load of points and when they end the away season they will generally be ranked 7th or 6th and lose all the home points plus the away whitewashes or losses will still be in the system and when they have the long home season again they will be playing number 1 or top sides and basically whitewash them at home and probably not lose a series for 3-4 yrs.

they don't really get to have an accurate ranking because of it.

Roll on the test tournament, I say.

It's the only way to provide context and meaning (and perhaps force sides to do something about their away performance) for the majority of test series, and will provide an undisputed winner every 4 years.

it should change with the new test league thing.
have to see if it works in real life though.

bigfluffylemon wrote:Roll on the test tournament, I say.
(and perhaps force sides to do something about their away performance)

this hadn't occurred to me

Arthur Crabtree wrote:England's record since the last WC- home before the team, away after. England's score first.

3-2... New Zealand... N/A
2-3... Australia ...3-0*
4-1... Pakistan ...3-1
2-1...South Africa... 2-3
3-0... Sri Lanka... N/A
N/A... Bangladesh... 2-1
N/A... India ...1-2
4-0... West Indies ...3-0

Against the five sides they will be competing with at the WC and the top of the rankings, that's won: 5, lost: 3. Plus add four series wins v BD, WI and SL

I doubt these rankings will mean much at all come England 2019, due to the absurd nature of how the ICC have formatted the tournament with an all-v-all group stage:

6 victories from 9 matches is likely to be enough to qualify teams for the semi-finals, then whichever side wins 2 knock-out games takes home the World Cup!

There might (and conceivably there might not, depending on previous results and how the draw pans out...) be a handful of meaningful matches in rounds 7/8/9 - out of FORTY FIVE fixtures - before the 3 that really matter!

I suppose it means that England get to play Australia and India play Pakistan without resorting to the hot/cold balls trick.