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 Rediff Cricket Ratings Rediff Cricket Ratings
June 18, 2002

India sneak ahead to sixth place

M J Manohar Rao and Srinivas Bhogle

An unlikely beneficiary of England's 2-0 series victory over Sri Lanka is India! As we finish our calculations on Tuesday morning we find that India (39.32) are ahead of Sri Lanka (39.31) by the tiniest whisker. These differences at the second decimal place (actually the fourth decimal place because we multiply our index by 100) cannot actually be taken too seriously; but they do at least tell us that India are practically level with Sri Lanka, and a good series against England will take India nicely ahead.

In our last update we had hinted at this possibility, but had indicated that India must still get a win and a draw (or three draws) against England to actually move ahead. We goofed slightly because we compared India's rating on 3 June with Sri Lanka's likely rating on 17 June! It turns out that India gain a little more than expected from England's victory for reasons that will be quite clear to readers familiar with the Rediff test ratings. In layman's terms, England just got a little better and, because India defeated England in their recent test series, India too -- indirectly -- got slight better.

The current (as on June 18, 2002) home-away point tally of test playing teams is shown, below, in Table A.
-- How the rankings work...

TABLE A: Test Score Card (as on Jun 18, 2002)
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
3 / 3
 1 / 3
3 / 3		 2 / 4
5 / 5
 1 / 1
-
England 1.5 / 5
1 / 5
 1 / 3
2 / 3
 1.5 / 3
1.5 / 4
 2 / 3
1 / 2
 2 / 5
3 / 5
 2 / 3
2.5 / 3		 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
2 / 2
New Zealand 1.5 / 3
0 / 3
 2.5 / 4
1.5 / 3
 1 / 3
2 / 3
 0 / 1
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 / 1
 1 / 2
1 / 3
 2.5 / 3
1 / 4
 1 / 3
2 / 2
 1.5 / 2
1 / 3
South Africa 0 / 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
 0.5 / 3
1 / 3
 1.5 / 3
2 / 3
 0 / 2
2 / 3
 3 / 4
0.5 / 3
 0.5 / 3
1.5 / 3
 0.5 / 2
3 / 3		 2 / 3
3 / 3
West Indies 0 / 5
2 / 4
 1.5 / 5
4 / 6
 1.5 / 3
3 / 5
 0 / 2
1.5 / 2		 0 / 2
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 / 2
1 / 2
 0.5 / 1
0 / 2
 2 / 3
0.5 / 2
 0 / 2
0 / 1
 0 / 3
1 / 3
 0 / 2
0.5 / 2

The corresponding ranking table, Table F, appears below.

TABLE F: Final Rankings (as on Jun 18, 2002)
Country Performance index (RBI) Rank Difference
3.6.02 to 18.6.02/FONT>
Australia 74.81 1 +0.21
South Africa 56.72 2 -0.13
England 47.27 3 +1.81
New Zealand 44.01 4 +0.11
Pakistan 43.34 5 +0.01
India 39.32 6 -0.12
Sri Lanka 39.31 7 -3.05
West Indies 34.73 8 -0.01
Zimbabwe 18.35 9 -0.19

Sri Lanka's drop of 3.05 must appear a trifle surprising. This is because Sri Lanka surrendered a 1-0 series win and got a 0-2 defeat in return.

Before the much-awaited India-England four-test series starts, a two-test series, pregnant with possibilities, between West Indies and New Zealand will be completed. Table G, below, looks at all the possible scenarios in the West Indies-New Zealand series.

TABLE G: WEST INDIES VS NEW ZEALAND: ALL POSSIBLE SCENARIOS
Points break-up (1 point for win, 0.5 for draw, 0 for loss) West Indies' new performance index (RBI) New Zealand's new performance index (RBI) Remarks
WI: 2, NZ: 0 35.44 42.37 NZ drop to fifth, India sixth
WI: 1.5, NZ: 0.5 34.73 44.01 NZ fourth, India sixth
WI: 1, NZ: 1 33.95 45.57 SL sixth, India seventh
WI: 0.5, NZ: 1.5 33.09 47.05 India seventh
WI: 0, NZ: 2 32.15 48.45 NZ jump to third, India seventh

Table G therefore indicates that India will hold on to its sixth position only if West Indies win the series. A drawn series will again push India down to seventh. If New Zealand win 2-0 (which appears unlikely), they will jump to the third position. West Indies therefore remains a great place to win test matches. A pity India couldn't win more.

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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