It's that time again. People find flaws in the ICC Ranking System every time it's India on top. 'There surely must be an error if India can be at the top' cries started doing rounds barely 5 minutes after Herath picked up his 13th wicket of the match to make it 3-0 in favour of Sri Lanka, toppling Australia down to 3rd in the rankings.
The New Rankings:
The Issue:
The concept of recent memories outweighing older ones, gives us an illusion that India don't deserve to be at the top of the table. Pakistan, with their 2-2 performance in England should be there.
The Real Picture:
The Rankings for the current period show Pakistan having played 25 Test Matches. Let's have a detailed look at these 25 most recent matches they've played.
Here's how these 25 matches sum up:
- Pakistan have played 14 matches at Home (Yes, I'm committing to calling UAE their Home) and 6 more in Asia (Against Bangladesh, ranked 9th and Sri Lanka, ranked 6th).
- Out of the 14 Home Matches, Pakistan won 7 (50%).
- Out of 5 overseas matches, 1 was in Zimbabwe. And they LOST that one. To a team that is right at the bottom of the Rankings Table (Only 8 Ranking Points as opposed to Pakistan's 111).
Comparing that to the 20 matches India have played so far in this period, we get this -
Summing up:
- Overseas matches played outnumbered Home matches by a big margin. India played 16 Overseas matches in this period, winning 5 out of 16 matches.
- Only 4 out of the 20 matches were played at Home, with India winning all 4 of them.
Collecting the above summary and putting it together:
Pakistan:
- Outside Asia Wins/Matches: 2/5
- Asia Wins/Matches: 10/20
India:
- Outside Asia Wins/Matches: 3/12
- Asia Wins/Matches: 5/8
We can definitely argue that these two teams are too close to call for the top spot - the rankings depict that with just 1 Ranking Point separating them.
But to say India don't deserve to be on top is not correct either, as the stats show.
