Dubai, 13 June 2008
Opportunity for Pietersen to return to top five in batting list as Black Caps’ bowlers and batsmen eye upward movement
A shuffling of the pack could be on the cards in the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship as England goes head-to-head with New Zealand in a five-match ODI series starting at Chester-le-Street, Durham on Sunday.
Fresh from its victory over New Zealand in the Test series which helped Michael Vaughan’s side move up to third in the Reliance Mobile ICC Test Championship, England has the opportunity to rise to as high as fourth in the ODI list if it sweeps the series, irrespective of how Saturday’s tri-series final in Bangladesh, between India and Pakistan, pans out.
However, if the clean-sweep result is reversed then Paul Collingwood’s side will drop from 105 to 101 ratings points to give the West Indies a sniff of seventh spot when its ODI series starts against Australia on 24 June.
At the same time, that 5-0 series win will see New Zealand rocket to 118 points to reduce the gap to front-runners South Africa and Australia which sit on 127 ratings points each.
In case England claims the series 4-1, it will join New Zealand on 109 points but behind the Black Caps in fifth position when the ratings are recalculated beyond the decimal point.
If England wins the series 3-2 it will leapfrog Sri Lanka into sixth place while New Zealand will drop to fourth behind India , which will also be its position if Daniel Vettori’s side wins the series 3-2 and India wins the tri-series final.
Ultimately, what all this illustrates is that the middle of the table is extremely congested and any side that can put a run of good results together has the opportunity to charge up the listing and start to put some pressure on South Africa and Australia .
In the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for ODI batsmen, England’s Kevin Pietersen, in eighth-place, has an excellent opportunity to return to the top five if he can maintain the form that saw him score 115 (his 12th Test hundred) in the final Test of the recently-concluded series with New Zealand.
Pietersen, who slipped off the top of the batting chart after the series against the West Indies 11 months ago, trails fifth-placed Shivnarine Chanderpaul of the West Indies and Matthew Hayden of Australia , and seventh-placed Mike Hussey of Australia by just five ratings points.
Pietersen’s team-mates Ian Bell and Collingwood are in 20th and 21st positions respectively and can get in front of 20th-placed Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardena with a series of good performances.
New Zealand wicketkeeper Brendon McCullum (24th), Peter Fulton (28th), Jamie How (31st), Ross Taylor (35th) and Jacob Oram (45th) are the Black Caps batsmen in the top 50 and all will be eyeing upward movement in the batting list.
South Africa captain Graeme Smith leads the table from India ’s Sachin Tendulkar with Australia captain Ricky Ponting in third place.
New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori leads the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for ODI bowlers while the other Black Caps bowlers in the top 20 are the absent Shane Bond, Kyle Mills and Oram.
England ’s highest-ranked bowler in the absence of 15th-placed Andrew Flintoff is James Anderson in 24th place while Stuart Broad is in 36th position.
In the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for ODI all-rounders, Oram has a good chance to leapfrog West Indies captain Chris Gayle and Flintoff into third place.
Schedule:
15 June – first ODI, Chester-le-Street
18 June – second ODI, Birmingham
21 June – third ODI, Bristol
25 June – fourth ODI, Oval
28 June – fifth ODI, Lord’s
Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship (as of 13 June 2008)
Rank Team Rating
1 South Africa 127
2 Australia 127
3 New Zealand 113
4 India 113
5 Pakistan 110
6 Sri Lanka 105
7 England 105
8 West Indies 99
9 Bangladesh 47
10 Ireland 20
11 Zimbabwe 18
12 Kenya 0
Reliance Mobile ICC One-Day Rankings (as of 13 June 2008)
Batsmen
Rank Player Team Points Ave HS Rating
1 Graeme Smith SA 792! 41.11 792 v Ban at Dhaka 2008
2 S.R.Tendulkar Ind 777 44.33 887 v Zim at Sharjah 1998
3 Ricky Ponting Aus 770 43.40 832 v NZ at Hobart 2007
4 Mohd Yousuf Pak 763 43.62 777 v SA at Rawalpindi 2003
5= S.Chanderpaul WI 740 40.24 754 v SA at Durban 1999
Matthew Hayden Aus 740 43.80 854 v Ind at Centurion 2003
7 Mike Hussey Aus 736 55.60 863 v NZ at Perth 2007
8 Kevin Pietersen Eng 735 48.18 834 v Aus at Antigua 2007
9 AB de Villiers SA 733! 37.66 733 v Ban at Dhaka 2008
10 MS Dhoni Ind 728 45.50 806 v WI at Kingston 2006
11 H.H.Gibbs SA 718 36.53 750 v SL at Durban 2003
12 Michael Clarke Aus 717 44.04 756 v SL at Melbourne 2008
13 Andrew Symonds Aus 713 39.68 778 v Ind at Nagpur 2007
14 K.C.Sangakkara SL 698 35.72 760 v Ind at Rajkot 2007
15 Yuvraj Singh Ind 691 36.09 739 v WI at Port-of-Spain 2006
16 Jacques Kallis SA 688 45.21 816 v WI at Johannesburg 2004
17 Chris Gayle WI 687 38.93 804 v Aus at Mumbai 2006
18 R.R.Sarwan WI 681 44.12 798 v Ind at St Kitts 2006
19 M.Jayawardena SL 661 33.04 737 v WI at Colombo (RPS) 2001
20 Ian Bell Eng 657 36.29 705 v Ind at Birmingham 2007
Bowlers
Rank Player Team Points Ave Econ HS Rating
1 Daniel Vettori NZ 790! 31.87 4.18 790 v Eng at Christchurch 2008
2 Nathan Bracken Aus 770 21.89 4.37 806 v SL at St George's 2007
3 Shane Bond NZ 736 19.32 4.20 811 v SA at St George's 2007
4= Chaminda Vaas SL 683 27.41 4.18 861 v SA at Colombo (RPS) 2004
Kyle Mills NZ 683 26.66 4.65 694 v Ban at Queenstown 2007
6 Andre Nel SA 682 26.95 4.61 685 v Ban at Dhaka 2008
7 Daren Powell WI 680! 30.16 4.56 680 v SL at St Lucia 2008
8 Jerome Taylor WI 678 27.46 4.69 688 v SA at Cape Town 2008
9 Brett Lee Aus 671 22.81 4.71 853 v SA at Melbourne 2006
10 Shahid Afridi Pak 662! 35.00 4.61 662 v Ban at Karachi 2008
11 M.Muralidaran SL 658 23.00 3.87 913 v NZ at Sharjah 2002
12 M.F.Maharoof SL 644 24.39 4.65 671 v Eng at Dambulla 2007
13 Brad Hogg Aus 636 26.84 4.52 687 v Ind at Nagpur 2007
14 Makhaya Ntini SA 635 24.12 4.46 782 v WI at Cape Town 2004
15= Andrew Flintoff Eng 634 25.10 4.37 755 v Ban at Dhaka 2003
Jacob Oram NZ 634 31.24 4.48 768 v Aus at The Oval 2004
17 M.G.Johnson Aus 632* 25.41 4.80 659 v SL at Melbourne 2008
18 Harbhajan Singh Ind 615 33.51 4.18 735 v WI at Bridgetown 2002
19 Lasith Malinga SL 612 25.58 4.80 687 v Ban at Colombo (RPS) 2007
20 Peter Ongondo Ken 610! 25.14 4.34 610 v Ber at Nairobi 2007
All-rounders
Rank Player Team Points HS Rating
1 Shoaib Malik Pak 353 402 v WI at Brisbane 2005
2 Shahid Afridi Pak 348 353 v SA at Tangier 2002
3 Chris Gayle WI 339 511 v Zim at Harare 2003
4 Andrew Flintoff Eng 337 544 v SL at The Rose Bowl 2004
5 Jacob Oram NZ 335 353 v Eng at Auckland 2008
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