WCB launches ODI Team Standings

The new WCB T20I Team Standings table seems to have gone down well, so here is the WCB ODI Team Rankings, which have been worked out in a similar way. I dug out all the results for the last four years for the top 10 teams in world cricket at the moment - the eight that are taking part in the current ICC Women's Championship, plus Bangladesh and Ireland. I then applied this relatively simple formula:-

• 2 points for a win
• 1 point for a tie
• Bonus points based on team positions in the last World Cup in 2013, so if you beat a team you get the following bonus points :- Australia 10, West Indies 9, England 8, New Zealand 7, Sri Lanka 6, South Africa 5, India 4, Pakistan 3, Bangladesh 2, Ireland 1
  (this is just the starting point, and it will change from here on - see below).

As with the T20I table I decided that the recent games had to be given more weight, so I reduced the total number of points from games played over two years ago by half. It produced the following table.

Unsurprisingly Australia, with over an 80% win ratio, are top of the league, quite some way ahead of England. Surprisingly perhaps New Zealand (third in the T20 table) are only fifth in the ODI table, behind West Indies and India. It will be interesting to see if New Zealand can move themselves up the table with wins over Sri Lanka (worth five points each), and West Indies will look to consolidate their position in third with wins over Pakistan (worth six points each). But one loss will mean big points for Sri Lanka (8) and Pakistan (10) and obviously 0 points for New Zealand and West Indies from that game, which will reduce their average score.

The table will be updated after every ODI series - West Indies take on Pakistan starting Friday (four ODI series) and New Zealand host Sri Lanka in November (also a four ODI series) - but with bonus points allocated on current positions in the WCB ODI Team Standings as at the date the series starts. So for example beating West Indies will be worth eight points, and Pakistan four for the upcoming series. 

If you have any thoughts on this table or would like to see the spreadsheet in more detail then please let me know, either via the comments below (with your email address if you want the stats), or you can email me at WCB@lawdox.co.uk.

MD
15/X/15

WCB launches International T20 Team Rankings

A couple of  weeks ago the ICC launched their "innovative new multi-format" women's team rankings (more info here). The system "incorporates results in all three formats of the game into one rankings system". So what that means is they have combined all the results from the last four years for T20Is, ODIs and Tests into one completely meaningless table.

Or am I being too harsh? Surely the three formats are completely different games? What is the point of combining all the results into one table? Much better surely to have three separate team rankings for Tests, ODIs and T20s, as the men do.

The problem with Tests is that in the last four years there have only been five Tests, played by England (4), Australia (3), India (2) and South Africa (1). Given that India have won both their games we will suggest they should be top of the Test League. How can these results be included in any multi-format table when six of the top 10 teams have not played in this format of the game?

Perhaps I thought there is some magical mathematical formula used to iron out these wrinkles (more like large creases)? I have asked the ICC if they could share their secret calculations with us, the general cricketing public, but it seems they are not inclined to do so. Far be it from me to say, but you do wonder if India's recent Test successes, compared with their T20 and ODI failures, may have influenced the ICC's thinking. India are fourth behind Australia, England and New Zealand in the ICC Women's Team Rankings.

So instead of just bleating about the ICC's lack of judgement, as well as their lack of openness, I thought I'd have a stab at creating my own team standings table. For the time being ODIs appear to be covered by the ICC Women's Championship table, which is beginning to reflect current performance (take a look here). I may however turn my attention to ODIs at a slightly later date.

T20Is it is then. So I set about creating the WCB T20I Team Standings. I dug out all the results for the top 10 teams that took part in the last T20 World Cup for the last four years. I then tried various formats of points for wins, plus bonus points for wins against different opponents. In the end I came up with this relatively simple formula:-

• 2 points for a win
• 1 point for a tie
• Bonus points based on team positions in the last T20 World Cup, so if you beat a team you get the following bonus points :- Australia 10, England 9, West Indies 8, South Africa 7, New Zealand 6, India 5, Pakistan 4, Sri Lanka 3, Bangladesh 2, Ireland 1
  (it is not ideal but I needed a starting point, and it will change from here on - see below)

I then decided that the recent games had to be given more weight, so I reduced the total number of points from games played over two years ago by half. It produced the following table.

Initially I was rather surprised that England came out on top, but actually they have a better overall win percentage than Australia, and in their last 12 encounters with Australia they have won 7 of them, so it seems accurate that they should be above them in the table. 

I will update the table after every T20I series - West Indies take on Pakistan at the end of this month and New Zealand host Sri Lanka in November - but with bonus points allocated on current positions in the WCB T20I Team Standings as at the date the series starts. So West Indies 7, Pakistan 4 for their upcoming series. 

If you have any thoughts on this table or would like to see the spreadsheet in more detail then please let me know, either via the comments below (with your email address if you want the stats), or you can email me at WCB@lawdox.co.uk.

Right I'm off to see what happens if I apply the same rationale to the ODI results over the last four years.

MD
13/X/15

Rankings - What are they good for?

The ICC have announced this week that they are going to amalgamate the women's rankings into one overall ranking. I say they announced it, but actually it came under the heading of "Other Matters", which came out of the most recent Board Meeting. All that was said was - "A new rankings system has been approved for women’s cricket, incorporating results in all three formats into a single rankings system."

As things currently stand there are Women's T20 batting, bowling and all-rounder rankings and Women's ODI batting, bowling and all-rounder rankings. You can find them here. What happens is that at the end of each series the rankings of the player's who played are adjusted up or down to reflect their performance in that series. The idea is to show the reader who are the current best players in international cricket. There are no Women's Test rankings, presumably on the basis that there have only been five Tests in the last five years and four of those have involved England and three Australia.

I have to say that I am no fan of the Women's Rankings, which are apparently calculated by a complicated algorithm, which attempts to take into account all the factors involved in any game played, but seems to produce some very odd results. For example who would you say are the five top-ranked women T20 bowlers if I asked you? [in case you want to try I have listed them at the bottom of this piece - try not to cheat. How many did you get? - be honest now].

I am even less of a fan of a system which attempts to amalgamate three completely different formats into one overall ranking, one of which (Tests) is hardly played at all, and when it is, is only played by one or two of the top cricket nations. India's Test against England last summer was the first they had played for eight years, and the subsequent India v South Africa Test was the first South Africa had played for seven years, with the previous one having been played against the Netherlands. Charlotte Edwards has played 22 Tests. West Indies Stafanie Taylor and Kiwi Suzie Bates have played none, and there are no plans for them to play any in the near future (unless the ICC are not telling us something!).

Quite frankly whatever the ICC produces it will be a nonsense.

So if we cannot rely on the ICC Rankings for anything more than an idle topic of conversation over a pint or a glass of wine at your local clubhouse, what can we rely on? The answer of course is the stats!

As a former business manager and a cricketer of some years (and still counting), I have to confess a liking for stats, although I am no slave to them. In my view the longer a player plays the more relevant their stats become. So I went off to find the stats for the current England team and then the top 20 ranked batsmen in ODI cricket. I found the England ones quite easily on cricinfo, although they do think that Arran Brindle, Holly Colvin and Suzie Rowe are current players. But my research found nothing that compared players around the world, so I did it myself. I think the results are quite interesting. Even Stephen Fry might agree, but then he is a cricket buff too! I leave it to you to make what you will of the stats. I have run up two tables - by average and by strike rate. The number after the player's name is their current ICC ODI batting ranking.

Top ODI batsmen by average

Top ODI batsmen by strike rate

I suppose the question is if you had to pick six batsmen for your World XI, who would they be? I know mine, but I bet they are not the same as yours.

By the way the five top-ranked ICC T20 Bowlers are :-
1. Salma Khatun - Bangladesh
2. Morna Nielsen - New Zealand
3. Dani Hazell - England
4. Udeshika Prabodhani - Sri Lanka
5. Shanel Daley - West Indies

MD
23/IV/15