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December 23, 2001

England gain a little, India lose a little, but rankings don't change

M J Manohar Rao and Srinivas Bhogle

By holding India to a 1-0 series victory, England have gained 2.13 percentage points in the Rediff Test ratings. India have lost 1.75 points, which, given their below average performance, they probably deserved to.

The relative positions don't change: England are still placed third; India continue to be seventh.

India's points were expected to drop since the outcome of this series was to replace the 3-0 sweep that India achieved after the 1993 India-England series played in India. India needed a similar sweep to retain parity; although an optimistic Ganguly hinted at this possibility after Mohali, unlike Azharuddin in 1993, he didn't have the form and confidence to make this happen.

With nine away Tests in the next nine months (5 in West Indies, 4 in England), India will have many opportunities in 2002 to climb in the ratings and even get into the top four. But they must play better than they did in 2001.

We provide, below, the updated version of Table A as on December 23, 2001. Our next update, after the Australia-South Africa and Sri Lanka-Zimbabwe series should be more exciting. [Note that New Zealand's victories against Bangladesh still don't count. We did attempt an exercise to see if we could add Bangladesh; but eventually decided to wait till Bangladesh manage to draw at least one game in a series often enough.

TABLE A: Test Score Card (as on December 23, 2001)
  A   W   A   Y
Aus Eng Ind NZ Pak RSA SL WI Zim
H

O

M

E		 Australia   4 / 5
3.5 / 5
 1 / 3
3 / 3
 3 / 3
1.5 / 3
 2 / 3
3 / 3
 2 / 3
2 / 3
 1 / 3
3 / 3		 2 / 4
5 / 5
 1 / 1
-
England 1.5 / 5
1 / 5
   1 / 3
2 / 3
 2.5 / 3
1.5 / 4
 2 / 3
1 / 2
 2 / 5
3 / 5
 2 / 3
0 / 1		 2 / 6
3.5 / 5
 1 / 2
1.5 / 2
India 0 / 3
2 / 3
 1 / 3
2 / 3		   1 / 3
2 / 3
 2 / 4
1 / 3
 0.5 / 2
0 / 2
 1 / 3
1.5 / 3
 2 / 5
1.5 / 3		 1 / 2
1.5 / 2
New Zealand 1.5 / 3
0 / 3
 2.5 / 4
0.5 / 3
 1 / 3
2 / 3
   1 / 2
1.5 / 3
 0.5 / 3
1 / 3
 1 / 3
2 / 2
 0.5 / 2
2 / 2
 2 / 2
0.5 / 1
Pakistan 0 / 3
1 / 3
 1 / 2
1 / 3
 2 / 3
2 / 4		 1.5 / 3
1 / 2
   1 / 2
1 / 3
 2.5 / 3
1 / 3
 1 / 3
3 / 3
 1.5 / 2
1 / 3
South Africa 1 / 3
1 / 3
 2 / 5
3 / 5
 2 / 2
1.5 / 2
 2 / 3
2.5 / 3
 2 / 3
1 / 2
   1.5 / 3
2.5 / 3
 3 / 5
5 / 5
 1 / 1
2 / 2
Sri Lanka 0 / 3
2 / 3
 1 / 1
1 / 3
 1.5 / 3
2 / 3
 0 / 2
2 / 3
 2 / 3
0.5 / 3
 0.5 / 3
1.5 / 3
   0.5 / 2
3 / 3		 2 / 3
2 / 2
West Indies 0 / 5
2 / 4
 1.5 / 5
4 / 6
 1.5 / 3
3 / 5
 0 / 2
1.5 / 2		 0 / 3
2 / 3
 0 / 5
2 / 5
 0 / 3
1.5 / 2
   1.5 / 2
2 / 2
Zimbabwe -
0 / 1
 0.5 / 2
1 / 2
 0.5 / 2
1 / 2
 0.5 / 1
0 / 2
 2 / 3
0.5 / 2
 0 / 2
0 / 1
 0 / 2
1 / 3
 0 / 2
0.5 / 2
  

The corresponding ranking table, Table F, appears below. Recall that the performance index is now multiplied by 100 so that the numbers are more "convenient" to view.

TABLE F: Final Rankings (as on December 23, 2001)
Country Performance index (RBI) Rank Difference
4.12.01 to 23.12.01
Australia 71.64 1 +0.43
South Africa 60.85 2 +0.14
England 47.56 3 +2.13
Pakistan 42.94 4 -0.19
New Zealand 42.37 5 -0.08
Sri Lanka 42.15 6 -0.10
India 39.37 7 -1.75
West Indies 35.03 8 +0.28
Zimbabwe 21.17 9 +0.10

Let us now ponder awhile on the outcome of the ongoing Australia-South Africa series. By winning the first Test, Australia have ensured that they remain on top of the Rediff Test ratings irrespective of the outcome of the Melbourne and Sydney Tests (if South Africa had defeated Australia 3-0 in Australia, they would have become No.1 with 67.73 points to Australia's 65.85. The only way that South Africa can now displace Australia is to go on to win 2-1 in Australia and again win 2-1 when they meet Australia at home early in 2002).

Table G, below, discusses all possible scenarios. It is clear that South Africa, and other Test playing countries, will have to sweat long enough, and often enough, to offer some semblance of a challenge to this champion Test team.

TABLE G: Australia vs South Africa: All possible scenarios (as on December 23, 2001)
Series result Australia new performance index (RBI) South Africa's new performance index
Australia win 3-0 74.05 56.95
Australia win 2-0 72.89 58.94
Australia win 1-0
Australia win 2-1		 71.64 60.85
Series drawn 1-1 70.31 62.68
Australia lose 1-2 68.90 64.44

As always, let us end this update by checking out the "official" ICC Test Championship Table. If India defeat England 1-0, the December 23, 2001 rankings (with points in brackets) will appear thus: 1. Australia (1.54), 2. South Africa (1.50), 3. Sri Lanka (1.14), 4. England (1.07), 5. New Zealand (1.00), 6. West Indies (0.93), 7. India (0.79), 8. Pakistan (0.69) and 9. Zimbabwe (0.50).

Also read:
Find out how the cricket ratings work...
Relative rankings don't change in November-end Rediff ratings

The Rediff test cricket ratings will soon become "interactive"; cricket fans will be able to enter different combinations of points for home and away matches and see how the ratings change. Computer programs for this interactive service are being developed by Siba Prasad Satapathy and Manoj Kumar Choudhury of NAL in association with the Rediff team.

Acknowledgements

To obtain all the Test match results we used the data available on cricinfo. We are grateful to Pallavi Bhogle and Dhruv Bhogle whose painstaking efforts in tabulating and cross-checking all the entries of Table A made our subsequent work so much easier. Finally, we thank Rediff and Prem Panicker for agreeing to publish this note.

M J Manohar Rao is professor and director, Department of Economics, University of Mumbai, Mumbai; Srinivas Bhogle is scientist and head, Information Management Division, National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore.

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