Crucket

You could debate, if you wanted to, who had the better of the first two tests, India or New Zealand. But that would be rather missing the point. The big stories in this series are firstly that New Zealand has not been nearly as bad as everyone expected them to be and secondly the 8th ranked team is giving the first ranked team a run for its money.

In this context, the result of the third test is almost irrelevant. Even if New Zealand loses the last test, a 0-1 result was all we were hoping for. Win or lose next week, we’ve achieved. If India do win, they probably won’t be disappointed with the series result, though their confidence as the top team after the series win against Australia will have been dented.

Going back to the rankings, we can actually put all this in numbers. As you may be aware, the official ICC test rankings are based on points earned by winning tests and test series with half points for draws. The points are then weighted by the relative rankings of the two teams. It’s all very arcane, but the ICC have a webpage that calculates future ratings.

Putting in a 1-0 win to India shows that New Zealand will gain 2 ratings points from the series, whereas India will lose a point. In other words, two draws with India means more to New Zealand than two draws, a test win and a series win means to India. If you want to dream: a 0-0 drawn series will give us a full 5 ratings points, while a 1-0 win will give us a massive 9 points.

As it happens, there is not a lot of competition for the top spot at the moment. India are way out in front and even a 0-1 loss will keep them well clear of South Africa in 2nd place. However, places 6, 7 and 8 are pretty tightly contested. After this series, New Zealand is guaranteed of raising a ranking to 7. However, that could be lost if the Windies’ series against Sri Lanka continues to go well. So we could end up staying at the bottom of the table despite a favourable result, and have to wait until the series against Pakistan in January to make a proper move up the rankings.

It might not look like things have changed since the first test, but behind the scenes Sri Lanka has risen to no. 2 in the ICC test rankings. This was due to Australia falling to an embarrassing 4th, rather than Sri Lanka doing anything to push themselves up. But even so, for the no. 7  team, taking on the no. 2 team seems so much more daunting than taking on the no. 3 team.

You wouldn’t quite expect the no. 2 to beat no. 7 in every 2 out of 2 tests. It’s probably more like 1.75 out of every 2 tests. If Sri Lanka win today’s test, they will slightly entrench their no. 2 ranking. Currently both Sri Lanka and India are on 119 points, with Sri Lanka being fractionally higher. A 2-0 series result will bump them to 120 points, pushing them just clear of India.

But if they don’t win, then it is interesting. A draw in this test will actually see Sri Lanka lose points, even though they would have won the series. They will fall to 118 points, into 3rd place. Now, if New Zealand were to win and the series shared, Sri Lanka would fall to 115 points, below Australia, while New Zealand would rise to 86 points (whoa!), actually putting them in 6th place, above Pakistan.

The ICC have updated their team test rankings, and as I expected New Zealand has gone up a rank from 8 to 7 thanks to the Windies losing against Bangladesh and that being thanks to a contract dispute stripping the Windies of their front line players.

(I was going to make this post yesterday based on the July ranking, which according to the 2009 archives actually showed that New Zealand’s rating had fallen from 82 points in May (don’t know what happened to June) to 78, despite not having played test cricket for months. The ICC updates their table every year at about this time, dropping off old results, which would explain this change. It’s good I waited for a day and managed to catch the update, as our rating has inexplicably jumped back up to 82 in August, again with no cricket played. I don’t know what the ICC are up to with their ratings as they don’t explain them to us any more.)

But anyway, leaving aside West Indies misfortune, we have a rating of 82 and we have upcoming test series against teams with ratings of 119 (Sri Lanka), 84 (Pakistan), 13 (Bangladesh) and 124 (Australia), spanning the whole spectrum of the rankings as they stand at the moment.

While England was creating history of Lord’s, Bangladesh was creating a bit of history of its own in the West Indies. Bangladesh won the second test by 4 wickets, to go with the 95-run win in the first test, to take the series 2-0. That’s test wins 2 and 3 overall for Bangladesh and the first series win overseas. However, given that they were playing against a West Indies side severely weakened by a contracts dispute, there’ll be few outside Bangladesh celebrating this achievement. (In fact, I seem to recall that the Zimbabwean side beaten by Bangladesh back in 04/05 was similarly weakened.)

One bizarre consequence of this turn of events is that the Windies slip down in the official rankings, enough to push New Zealand up one place into 7th. That’s not the sort of promotion to feel proud of.

As I understand the ranking system, Bangladesh gained 3 points from their 2-0 series win. With their current rating of 0 points, this gives them 270 points, which when converted into points gives them 10. I imagine that is as many points has they have ever had. The West Indies gained 0 points, which actually gives them -15 points, or in terms of points: 78. A drop of 7 points.

Earlier today, I suggested some equivalence between Gambhir’s innings of 137 (off 436) and Ryder’s of 201. Both innings have benefited the two batsmen in their rankings, as noted in today’s news.

Now while there is little to compare between Gambhir and Ryder given their difference stages in their careers (Gambhir now into his 4th year and Ryder merely in his 6th month), it is fun to see exactly what the last test did to their ratings.

Gambhir went into the Napier test with a rating of 801. After the test his rating is now 812, 11 points higher.

Ryder went to Napier with a rating of 486. His double century has pushed him to 607. A climb of 121.

Make of that what you will. I emphasise that nothing can be drawn from this comparison, considering as I said the different stages of their careers, the fact that Gambhir batted twice and the blindness of the ratings system to match context.

In the middle of the ODI series, where Indian were flaying the Black Caps, Stuff were exclaiming that Vettori was holding onto his no. 1 ranking. Not likely. By the time that article saw print Vettori had already dropped to 2nd, as the recently updated rankings now show. Vettori has now in fact dropped to 5th, after going wicketless in Auckland.

Kyle Mills managed to hold onto this spot at 3, thanks to his 1/27 in Auckland. Jacob Oram dwindled a bit, dropping from 14 before the series to 19 afterwards. Patel and Southee also slipped, while O’Brien, Ryder, Elliott and Butler don’t even make it into the top 100 (they are, respectively, 118, 137, 131 and 127).

Somehow I expected things to be worse for our bowlers.

Amongst the batsmen, Ryder reached a career high of 47, which is quite impressive considering he was ranked 77 before the series. Guptill was similarly successful; starting the tour at 72 and reaching 44 by the end.

Our highest ranked batsmen remains Taylor, who has slipped out of the top 20 over the series to sit at 23. McCullum is also in the 20s, at 27, where he started the series.  Styris drops into the 30s, despite not getting a bat in his one game, though that will include some degradation from missing the Chappell–Hadlee. Oram’s 8 runs in 3 innings pushes him into the 40s.

Elliott dipped slightly from 57 to 60, though that could have been as bad as 65 if it wasn’t for his furious cameo in Hamilton. Neil Broom just squeezes into the top 200. Kyle Mills didn’t improve his batting ranking much, though he finishes at 19 as an all-rounder. The biggest mover of all was Peter McGlashan,whose late innings heroics in Hamilton boosted his ranking from 329 to 235.

Last night’s victory over Australia has put the ODI rankings in flux. “Australia drop to third” is the headline on Cricinfo (“India rise to second” is the headline for the Times of India). That’s quite a turn around from the story before the series: Opportunity for Australia to reclaim top spot.

Three games to play in the series and it could be that the rankings shift around even more.

Aus win remaining 3:
Aus 125 (2nd spot)
NZ 113 (4th)

Aus win 2, NZ win 1 (“unthinkable”!):
Aus 122 (2nd or 3rd, depending on Ind v. SL)
NZ 116 (4th)

Aus win 1, NZ win 2:
Aus 119 (3rd, just)
NZ 119 (4th)

NZ win 3:
NZ 122 (2nd or 3rd, depending in Ind v. SL)
Aus 117 (4th)

It is hard to tell if this article in the Daily Telegraph is attacking New Zealand or Australia. “One of international cricket’s worst sides” they say of us, which stings a bit. It’s true, sure, but it is our test ranking that brings our overall ranking down and we’re in Aus to play an ODI series.

I suppose the point of the article is actually to point out how crap Australia must be if a crap team like New Zealand rates our chances.

However, they demolish their own argument without realising it. About half-way into the article they quote Rod Hogg who reckons that Australia should really be ranked about number 4 in the world. So, checking the ICC ranking table, shifting Aus down to 4 and shifting the others up, South Africa goes to no. 1, India to 2 and into spot 3 goes New Zealand. Hey look! So in actuality we’re ranked above Australia. No wonder we fancy our chances, and the Telegraph should too.

The papers are reporting that the ICC has named Matthew Hayden as one of the top 10 test batsmen of all time. Here’s the list and there’s Hayden, sitting at 10th equal.

The Indian’s aren’t happy. Not necessarily with Hayden’s position in the list, but with the fact that Sachin Tendulkar sits all the way down at 26. Tendulkar surely belongs higher on the list, definitely above Hayden. Tendulkar has more runs, more centuries and a higher average than Hayden.

I’m not going to enter that particular debate. I do think that Hayden is overrated. While he as an excellent batsman, he was basically an expert flat-track bully in an era of flat tracks. (Perhaps I only feel this way because we hardly got to see Hayden at his best. His record against New Zealand was not that impressive.) However, I also think that, inspite of his acknowledged genius, India are equally able to overrate Tendulkar.

The Indian bleating about the list is actually pretty funny. The BCCI secretary even seems to believe it is all a conspiracy to raise the profile of the ICC ranking system above Indian systems.

It only takes a quick look at the list to see that it only ranks the players based on their highest ever achieved rating. That is a long way from measuring how good a player is overall. So Hayden peaked higher than Tendulkar. However, check out the comparison of the two players. Tendulkar maintained a high rating for much longer than Hayden (noting that the time base for the graphs are different). If you change it to a view of ranking charts, you see that Tendulkar maintained an unbroken top 10 ranking for over 10 years, whereas Hayden only managed this for about 5 years. The ICC ranking blogger has noted that Tendulkar played 125 matches in the top 3, his measure of sustained excellence. You can draw your own conclusions from all of this, but it does show that there are innumerable ways of measuring greatness.

I’d say honours even at the end of the first day. The Windies might be happier if they were still holding onto another wicket or two, but they’ll be looking at 300 and change by the middle of tomorrow, which the Black Caps will have to work hard to match on current form. It’s a good place for the match to be.

The two teams look very even at the moment, with Chanderpaul making up for the weakness of the rest of his team and a general level of competancy in the Black Caps making up for the fact that we have no stars.A draw would be a fair result.

I don’t actually think a draw is at all likely with the Windies 6 down at the end of day one, but I was thinking about a draw before the match began and what the consequences that would have on the contest for 7th place. (You can tell how much being 8th is preying on my mind.)

The ICC test championship ranking system gives a team points in a test series based on the strength of the opposition, with half points given for a draw. If you do better than expected, given the opposition, you score points. If you do worse (i.e. lose to a lower ranked team), you lose points. So, if the test at Napier is a draw, NZ will actually gain points while the Windies will lose points. I was wondering if it is possible to draw a test series and thereby fall below your opponent.

NZ and Windies are currently less than one point apart. We are both listed as being on 81 points. We are in fact 0.55 points apart, which is surely as close as you can get. A quick calculation shows that a drawn series will bring us closer, but won’t change our relative rankings. The gap will close to 0.46 points.

I still think it is conceivable, in the mathematical morass that is the ICC system, to draw a series with a slightly higher ranked team and overtake them. Just not quite in this case.