ICC Cricket Rankings

[Notts Exile]

That stats suggest KP deserves #1 spot more than Ponting, live with it! Evidently Ponting must fail occasionally otherwise his ranking would be higher than KPs. I can't say I like Ponting either but I'm not going to suggest he shouldn't be number 1 because of that. It appears that the rankings are objective, thankfully.

[Oliver]

The rankings are indeed a joke. I happened to notice some "Canadian," Dutch, "Irish" and Kenyan cricketers had made their way into the lower echelons of the top hundred both in bowling (which is forgiveable) and in batting.

This is kind of ridiculous, as from the remarks in the far right column (stating "against whom" and "when") there are such luminaries as Kenya, Ireland, Canada and Scotland.

Now if you can get into the top one hundred all time, playing matches against lower ranked CCC sides, even at the World Cup, then something needs to be badly rejigged.

[Nostromo]

The ICC rankings are as ridiculous as the FA ones which put the USA in the No:5 spot ahead of Germany and England before the 2006 World Cup. If all matches including the 'minnows' are considered, Ponting & Pietersen might find someone like Tikolo breathing down their necks pretty soon.

[Younis Khan #1]

Glad to see most of you agree with me that the rankings are laughable

[darksideofthemoon]

Well Utseya and Anderson are both at 26 and Utseya didn't take any wickets in the World Cup and has played in 62 ODIs and has 37 wickets at 57.02 econ 3.97 s/r 86.13. I would have thought he would be at 86 and not 26.

[darksideofthemoon]

ICC Cricket Rankings at 28th May 2007

Batsmen

3 (-) - Pietersen
13 (-) - Collingwood
17 (-2) - Strauss
19 (-5) - Bell
22 (-) - Cook
23 (-) - Trescothick
28 (-1) - Flintoff
38 (+10) - Vaughan
60 (+15) - Prior
80 (-2) - Jones
85 (-3) - Giles
98 (-2) - Shah

Bowlers

8 (-1) - Hoggard
10 (-1) - Flintoff
18 (-) - Harmison
26 (-) - Panesar
37 (-) - Giles
48 (-) - Anderson
53 NEW - Sidebottom
55 (+5) - Plunkett
61 (-2) - Mahmood
74 (-2) - Udal
86 (-1) - Lewis
90 NEW - Vaughan

[Younis Khan #1]

Sidebottom's first game and suddenly he is ranked 53rd.

[Harmy's Army]

The way the ICC weight new players sheds light on why, for instance, Monty is only 26th at present:

New players start at zero points, and need to establish themselves before they get full ratings. There is a scale for calculating qualifications. For example, a batsman who has played 10 Test innings gets 70% of his rating (i.e. his rating will be between 0 and 700 points). He doesn’t get 100% until he has played 40 Test innings. A bowler who has taken 30 wickets also gets 70% of his full rating. He doesn’t get 100% until he has taken 100 Test wickets. This means that successful new players can enter the top 30 after just a few Tests, but are unlikely to reach the world top 5 until they have many Test matches under their belts.

I can't help feeling that the rankings are more favourable to batsmen than bowlers. Batsmen only have to bat 40 innings to get their full quota (100%) - their actual performances have no bearing on receiving that 100%, whereas bowlers have to take 100 wickets, irrespective of how many innings they bowl in. I cannot see why the same rule doesn't apply (or at least overs bowled rather than wickets taken).

Here's an interesting one:

This means that successful new players can enter the top 30 after just a few Tests, but are unlikely to reach the world top 5 until they have many Test matches under their belts.

Applying the above ICC logic Stuart Clark makes interesting reading, having played only nine tests and is rated 6th. He deserves that position on merit (and probably higher) but should there be such a wide discrepancy between him (6th with 47 wickets after 9 matches) and Monty (26th with 49 wickets after 15 matches). Where I'm coming from is that Clark has bowled against SA (6th ranked test team), Bangladesh (10th) and England (2nd) whereas Monty has bowled against Australia (1st) Pakistan (3rd) India (4th) Sri Lanka (5th) and the Windies (8th). Something a bit odd there.

[darksideofthemoon]

ICC Cricket Rankings at 7 June 2007

Batsmen

3 (-) - Pietersen
14 (+8) - Cook
18 (-5) - Collingwood
19 (-) - Bell
22 (-5) - Strauss
23 (-) - Trescothick
28 (-) - Flintoff
38 (-) - Vaughan
76 (-16) - Prior
81 (-1) - Jones
88 (-3) - Giles
99 (-1) - Shah

Bowlers

8 (-) - Hoggard
11 (-1) - Flintoff
12 (+14) - Panesar
18 (-) - Harmison
37 (-) - Giles
43 (+10) - Sidebottom
50 (-2) - Anderson
59 (-4) - Plunkett
62 (-1) - Mahmood
75 (-1) - Udal
87 (-1) - Lewis
91 (-1) - Vaughan

[flanflinger]

Four batsmen in the top 20 and four bowlers in the top 20.. very good to see.

Michael Vaughan at 38 does look a bit odd, doubt it will be long before he heads back up that list again. He likes India at home...

http://statserver.cricket.org/guru?s...lds=viewty pe