Test Cricket Rankings

[social]

I was playing around with the rankings calculator on the ICC website and it throws up a strange result

International Cricket Council - Match Zone - Test Predictor

If Eng beat Bangladesh 2-0 in Eng in their upcoming 2 test series, it does nothing for their rating - no real surprise there as it's no great achievement

However, if SA beats WI 2-0 away, then the same result occurs

In fact, if SA "only" wins 1-0, they go backwards

Surely SA should get some credit for what would be a reasonable result especially if the WI serves up the batting paradises they did for the last Eng series?

[vic_orthdox]

Would it be the fact that those results are what occurred last time, so as such they move backwards in comparison to where they were?

Not sure if those results were what happened last time that they played each other, for the record.

[Sir Alex]

What is the point in brininging in qualitiative aspects into a purely quantitative thing that is the rankings?

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by vic_orthdox

Would it be the fact that those results are what occurred last time, so as such they move backwards in comparison to where they were?

Not sure if those results were what happened last time that they played each other, for the record.

Yeah, indeed. After South Africa play West Indies away, for example, the result from the last South Africa in West Indies series stops counting.. so to improve their ranking they have to improve on their previous result.

[social]

Originally Posted by Sir Alex

What is the point in brininging in qualitiative aspects into a purely quantitative thing that is the rankings?

Because obviously the rationale behind the quantitative analysis is incorrect

[social]

Originally Posted by Prince EWS

Yeah, indeed. After South Africa play West Indies away, for example, the result from the last South Africa in West Indies series stops counting.. so to improve their ranking they have to improve on their previous result.

And that makes no sense whatsoever

[andyc]

So does that mean that if Australia beat England 5-0 in these upcoming Ashes, it won't improve their ranking? And if they win 3-0 they'll go back?

[Sir Alex]

Originally Posted by social

Because obviously the rationale behind the quantitative analysis is incorrect

In case West Indies manage a 1-0 win, SA would plummet to World No.4 and WI rise to No.6 in rankings
Yeah if Prince said is true, it makes no sense.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by andyc

So does that mean that if Australia beat England 5-0 in these upcoming Ashes, it won't improve their ranking? And if they win 3-0 they'll go back?

I think the recency of each series has a part to play as well, but I'm not too sure. I think beating a team 5-0 last month has more weight than beating a team 5-0 four years ago, so Australia would go up if that happened I assume.

Could be wrong though; I've never really studied it properly.

[Prince EWS]

Looks like I was totally wrong - they used to use a system similar to what I was thinking but they don't anymore.

Originally Posted by ICC, 2003

The new ICC Test Championship takes into account the result of every individual Test Match with a bonus awarded for winning a series. It also recognises the strength of the opposition in calculating the points awarded.

The system means that there are no longer any `dead rubber' Test Matches and that in any series both teams have the opportunity to improve or worsen their rating.

The ICC Test Championship reflects performances in all Tests completed since a given date (currently 1st August 1999), in contrast to the previous system which included some series played in 1996/97 yet excluded some more recent series. More recent matches have a stronger weighting and the rankings are refreshed every August.

A rating of 100 reflects average performance, so a team winning and losing a similar number of matches and playing a broad mix of opponents will have a rating close to 100.

[Samuel_Vimes]

There's a fix in the rankings which means beating WI and beating Bangladesh is roughly worth the same. If the fix wasn't there you'd lose points for beating Bangladesh, which would not be ideal.