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The final ranking
Updates: |
November 30, 2001
Relative rankings don't change in November-end Rediff ratingsM J Manohar Rao and Srinivas BhogleIt is a month since the Rediff cricket ratings were announced and it is now time for the end-November update. Although the final rankings of the nine test playing teams being considered have not changed, the values of the double-weighted Rao-Bhogle index (RBI), have seen some minor fluctuations. A question mark also hangs over the Rediff ratings as we await the final verdict on the status of the third test between South Africa and India. Having lost that game, it is clear that India stand to gain if the test match is considered to be "unofficial" -- because it would then be 0.5 points out of 2 for India, instead of 0.5 points out of 3. We provide, below, the updated version of Table A as on November 30, 2001 assuming the third test match to be "unofficial".
Notice that we have not so far considered the outcomes of the ongoing Australia-New Zealand and Sri Lanka-West Indies test encounters. We have also not considered the recent Bangladesh-Zimbabwe test series since Bangladesh still doesn't figure in the Rediff ratings. We might mention, however, that Zimbabwe's handsome wins against Bangladesh would only have very marginally improved their index since Bangladesh is such a weak opponent even at home. The corresponding ranking table, Table F, appears below. The performance index is now multiplied by 100 so that the numbers are more "convenient" to view.
Since India compete with Sri Lanka and New Zealand for the crowded fifth, sixth and seventh positions, it is interesting to speculate how the ratings might look like a few days later. Let's consider New Zealand first. New Zealand have been lucky to pick up 1 point out of 2 so far (and since this point has been gained against Australia in Australia it has the highest "weight"). This will certainly help their cause, but it is still not enough for them to go past India (who too have gained an away draw against a strong South Africa). If New Zealand can force a third draw (no one's expecting Australia to lose at Perth!), they will climb two places to move to #5, ahead of Sri Lanka and India. This might appear harsh on Sri Lanka, who so far have two wins out of two against West Indies. Unfortunately, these remarkable victories, fashioned by Muralitharan in spite of a resurgent Lara, aren't worth too much since Sri Lanka are winning at home against a country with a dismal "away" record. The final table below indicates how the Rediff ratings might look like if Australia win at Perth and Sri Lanka draw at Colombo. We will "officially" update the Rediff ratings again as soon as the A-NZ and SL-WI series end.
Although India are still clinging on to the sixth position, it will take a while before India's ratings can hope to climb again. Even a very handsome showing in the series against England (if it is held!) won't help since India won 3-0 at home the last time. India can only expect gains if they manage to win "away" against West Indies and England in 2002. England, on the other hand, have something to gain since India are so hard to beat at home. Find out how the cricket ratings work... The Rediff test cricket ratings will soon become "interactive"; cricket
fans will be able to enter different combinations of points for home and away
matches and see how the ratings change. Computer programs for this interactive
service are being developed by Siba Prasad Satapathy and Manoj Kumar Choudhury
of NAL in association with the Rediff team.
Acknowledgements
To obtain all the Test match results we used the data available on cricinfo. We are grateful to Pallavi Bhogle and Dhruv Bhogle whose painstaking efforts in tabulating and cross-checking all the entries of Table A made our subsequent work so much easier. Finally, we thank Rediff and Prem Panicker for agreeing to publish this note.
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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