England and Sri Lanka swap places in mid-table; plenty of scope for change in coming months
Australia has retained its lead at the head of the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship table following the annual update.
Ricky Ponting’s side is two rating points clear of its nearest challengers South Africa and those line-ups are well ahead of New Zealand, which lies in third position.
The only change in the teams’ rankings as a result of the update sees England and Sri Lanka swapping places. Both sides have 106 rating points but England is placed higher, in sixth spot, when those ratings are calculated beyond the decimal point.
The fact there is only that one positional change reflects the fact that the teams have not demonstrated dramatic recent changes in form.
The annual update is carried out to ensure the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship table continues to reflect recent form with older results being discarded.
The table reflects all ODIs played since August two years ago. All ODIs played until the start of next August will be added to this table, so by then the ratings will be based on three years of results and, over those three years, matches played in the most recent year will carry most weight.
Next August the first year of results will be dropped and this pattern is repeated each August, with the oldest of the three years of results removed to be gradually replaced with results of matches played over the following 12 months.
Thus, once a year, the rankings will change overnight without any new ODIs being played.
This process takes place at the start of August each year. This time has been chosen since it is usually a relatively quiet time in the ODI calendar.
Of course, there is plenty of scope for change in the coming months with a great deal of ODI action set to take place.
Amongst that action is England hosting South Africa, Bangladesh touring Australia, New Zealand visiting Pakistan and India and Sri Lanka going head-to-head.
And after all that there is also the matter of the ICC Champions Trophy in Pakistan in September, with the top eight sides in the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship table as of 11 March playing 15 matches in cricket’s second “major” after the ICC Cricket World Cup.
Australia is the defending champion after beating the West Indies in the 2006 final, in Mumbai.
LG ICC ODI Championship (as of 1 August 2008, after annual update)
Rank* Team Rating*
1 (1) Australia 130 (129)
2 (2) South Africa 128 (127)
3 (3) New Zealand 116 (115)
4 (4) India 112 (113)
5 (5) Pakistan 110 (110)
6 (7) England 106 (103)
7 (6) Sri Lanka 106 (106)
8 (8) West Indies 95 (97)
9 (9) Bangladesh 46 (45)
10 (10) Ireland 18 (19)
11 (11) Zimbabwe 16 (18)
12 (12) Kenya 0 (0)
ICC MEDIA RELEASE