Scrap the ICC Test Team Rankings – Looking at a Better Way to Determine Test Match Cricket’s World Champions

30th January 2016

Patrolling the Boundary  – a view from the outfield

So India are the Test World Champions. You’re kidding me, right? Really?

The morning after England had secured a Test series win in South Africa (who until that point had topped the ICC’s Test rankings table), the news emerged that India were now reckoned as the new ‘no. 1’ after South Africa’s defeat and dethroning.

This couldn’t be correct, surely? Is that the reward for loading home pitches and preparing raging bunsens to stuff South Africa in November/December?

I wondered if I’d woken up in some ridiculous alternate universe where the system to evaluate the world’s best Test cricket team was determined by weird, unfathomable algebraic equations that were both illogical and counter-intuitive. And perhaps even worse, completely lacking in accountability or transparency.

Nope. This, sadly, unbelievably, is Test cricket’s REALITY.

This is the ICC’s Test Rankings System, described recently by the Yorkshire Post’s Chris Waters as “an unfathomable waste of time”; and as “pointless” and “completely irrelevant” by Two Men Out’s Jarrod Kimber and Andy Zaltzman on ESPN Cricinfo.

Admittedly, it is pretty close points-wise in the rankings’ top half-dozen, with a DRS tracking-system perhaps being needed to determine between the placings; while at the bottom there is a huge modern bat-width between the teams on the lower rungs of the ladder.

But however close, I really don’t think many pundits, fans, or analysts seriously consider India to be Test cricket’s best team.

What I am going to suggest in this article is not only that they aren’t – but that they are identified as such because the system used is just plain wrong.

And I am going to offer two alternative, workable systems – and suggest that one of them ought to replace the current one.

In fact, in both versions of those alternative systems PAKISTAN come out on top. Indeed, perhaps oddly and coincidentally (or perhaps because they are similarly practical and reliable methods) those two systems actually provide identical placings for all ten Test playing countries:    

Poor Rankings & Great Averages

19th January 2016

Around the World in 2 – a few occasional off-breaks

Each week for ‘Mason & Guests’ I put together a brief summary of cricket events outside the Caribbean, round-up the week’s notable WI birthdays & anniversaries, & throw in a few ‘Did You Know?’ facts:

“Hello! This is David Oram taking you ‘Around the World in 2‘:

“Eng won the 3rd Test v SA & took an unassailable 2-0 series lead. SA had to fly in WK Dane Vilas on the morning of the game as an emergency replacement for Quinton de Kock, who was freakishly injured, twisting a knee while out walking his girlfriend’s tiny Jack Russell terriers. The win was built upon a brilliant century by Joe Root & a burst of 6-17 by Stuart Broad to shoot SA out for 83 in their 2nd inngs. Broad also leapt to the top of the ICC’s Test bowling rankings. The defeat sees SA fall from the summit of the team rankings, with India bizarrely becoming the no.1 Test side with Eng in 5th place. This unsatisfactory outcome again highlights the flaws in the ICC rankings. Surely, if the World Champions lose, the victor should take on the mantle, like in boxing? A better system would be a squash-ladder, which if in operation now would currently see Pak top, Eng 2nd, Aus 3rd & India 4th. Sadly though, under both systems, WI remain 8th. The final Test kicks off on Fri at Centurion but Spare a Thought for Steven Finn, who’s flown home injured; & with a duck in Eng’s total of 323 failed to register a run in the 1st inngs for the 18th time in his 29 Tests.