by Kamran Jamal (25th Octover 2011)

The game of cricket has seen significant changes since the introduction of world series tournaments in the 70’s, thereby triggering increased interest of sub continental teams to win global tournaments and perform at an international stage. With India winning the World Cup in 83 and Pakistan in 92, Sri Lanka who had been an associate member since the 70s raised its standards and announced itself as one of the strongest teams in the world of cricket by winning the 1996 World Cup. 

This increased competition between the countries was a direct result in the increasing number of global cricket tournaments. In 2001, ICC took another bold step to increase the competitiveness of cricket between the countries and world players by launching Test and ODI rankings for countries, batsmen, bowlers and allrounders. 

With increased competitiveness at the international level and the introduction of a new format of the game T20 in 2005, it was only a matter of time before the ICC introduced the rankings of T20I, showing their belief in a format that will attract more affiliate countries to the game of cricket and increase the level of competition in the shortest format.

At the launch event, David Richardson, unveiled the T20I rankings with England taking the number 1 spot and followed closely by Sri Lanka at the 2nd spot. 

David highlighted that one of the main objectives of launching rankings for T20I was to give much more meaning and context to the bilateral T20I, which will be evident in the near future, when England will put its top spot title on the line against India. The other factors playing key roles in launching the rankings were to provide a stronger key measure to countries playing the format and giving them a view on their performances. This was strongly displayed by the fact that it was the first ever time that Afghanistan featured in the top ten countries, solely reaped through their efforts of qualifying for the 2010 T20I World Cup and winning against Scotland and Ireland in bilateral matches played in 2010/11.

The ICC General Manager was also quoted saying “that the current T20I rankings are relatively volatile due to fewer games of T20I played especially when compared to the other formats of the game. For example, India is currently ranked at 5th place and if they win the recent upcoming T20 against England it will boost them up to the 2nd spot, allowing Sri Lanka to take the lead position. The same goes for the rest of the teams for example Pakistan if they win against Sri Lanka and England in the upcoming T20I matches in Dubai, they will move up to the 3rd position. So there is everything to play for.”

In the T20I batting rankings Eoin Morgan was unveiled as the top batsmen and the top 20 table boasted 4 batsmen each from Australia and South Africa and 3 batsmen each from Sri Lanka and India.

In the bowling rankings, Ajantha Mendis was revealed as the number one bowler. The bowling rankings also showed that 7 of the top ten bowlers were spinners, remarkably dispelling the argument of T20I being the death of spinners. Another feature of the bowling rankings was that the top 10 bowlers were represented by 8 different countries and hence giving a good spread to the table.

Finally in the allrounder rankings, Shane Watson was revealed at the number 1 spot followed closely by Shahid Afridi on which David commented that he, “hoped that [Shahid Afridi] would take the top position soon, after making himself available for selection”. The interesting feature for Pakistani supporters of this ranking was that it featured three of their cricketing stars in the top 10 allrounder list, namely Mohammed Hafeez, Abdul Razzaq along with Shahid Afridi.

The event was then followed by a short panel discussion which featured David Richardson, Mahela Jayawardene of Sri Lanka, Pakistan’s Mohammed Hafeez and David Kendix, the creator of the rankings data and tables.

Mahela commented that he was gladdened by the launch of the rankings as it would give higher motivation to the players to fight for gaining the top spots and be better cricketers. Mahela also stated that the rankings also work as a basis of satisfaction at the same time for the hard work a team puts into being consistent in the format for the past couple of years. For Sri Lanka in particular Mahela remarked, that the rankings will, “help to provide a guideline that much more hard work and consistency is required to retain the 2nd position and improve further to clinch the top rank.”

Mahela also added that, “due to the introduction of the format it has given me a much more positive and aggressive outlook on my personal game at test and ODI level.” He also stated that due to this format, players have come up with very fascinating innovations, which the world hadn’t seen 10 years ago, “such as the dilscoop, the yorker lengths outside off stump, slower bouncers and even witnessing reverse swing when the ball is merely 15 overs (hinting at Pakistan’s Umar Gul).”

Many of these innovations have had an impact on test cricket, where scoring 400 a day is now seen as a standard as well as bowlers using T20 innovations in Test and ODI cricket, thereby improving the competitiveness of the game at all level.

Mohammed Hafeez started off by thanking the ICC for inviting him to the event and being “grateful to Almighty Allah for being featured as the number 4 allrounder in the world.” Hafeez added an interesting point to the discussion where he mentioned, “allrounders who bat high up the order, especially openers will have a higher chance of featuring in the top 10 as they got more chance of staying at the wicket as the game is a short 20 overs.” This was strongly supported by the fact that 7 of the top 10 allrounders are either openers or come in at the one drop position in the batting order.

Hafeez also added that these rankings can help immensely in promoting the game and increasing the game’s reach to countries such as China & Nepal. Hafeez further commented that, “Pakistan for the past 2 years have been working hard on improving their rankings in Test and ODIs and now they also need to work hard on T20I as well, despite being finalists of 2007, winners of 2009 and semi finalists of 2010, they are ranked at number 7, solely due to the performance not being up to the mark in the recent past.” Hafeez concluded by adding that “Pakistan has a very exciting bunch of cricketers at T20I level, which can contribute in taking Pakistan right to the top of the rankings by the end of 2012 T20I World Cup in Sri Lanka.”

Followed by these discussions there were concerns raised as to how the rankings have been calculated, to which David Kendix, the creator of the statistical data and sensitivity analysis of the performances, commented that “every match which is participated by two teams with certain points, the points they get are based on two factors, one being the result of the match whether they win or lose and the second being the rating of the opponent they are playing.” For example, you get more points when winning against a stronger team than compared to a weaker team. Therefore you get certain number of points for each match, which are added up and divided by the number of matches played to give the final rankings of the teams. The scope of data for developing the ranking model was from matches played after August 2009, hence Pakistan being ranked at 7 due to losing 12 matches out of 24 played during the scoped period.

The event came to a close with the point stated by David Richardson, that the ICC is wary of the fact that by promoting increased T20I matches it can have a direct impact on test and ODI cricket. However, the advantage of attracting affiliate countries to the game outweighs the disadvantages of the format and the ICC will continue to focus heavily on test cricket as well to ensure that T20 does not take away the real beauty of the game while managing all three versions effectively.

Personal discussion with David Kendix on the statistical model:

David Kendix, is a credible member of Association of Actuaries in the UK (FIA) having worked for organisation such as Prudential Assurance, Old Mutual and Aviva as an ERM Director. David was contracted as a consultant to ICC to develop these stochastic models for the rankings.

David had explained that the main reason for taking a cut off period from August 2009 onwards was to use the initial (2007 – 2009) period give an initial base ratings to the countries. Therefore, during the initial period Pakistan’s performance being extraordinary by winning 21 matches out of 27, gave them a very high rating and subsequently from 2009 August onwards, them losing to weaker teams saw a loss in their ratings and bringing the likes of England, Sri Lanka and South Africa at the top spots. 

However, pressing more onto David, he agreed to the fact that the more the data available the more accurate the ratings would have been (i.e. increasing the scope period from 2005 onwards) and an ideal way would have been to account for all matches since 2005 and it would have been easier too when compared to ODIs and Tests as there are few matches and data to put into the models. However, David said that this methodology and approach was not approved by the ICC, therefore the cut off period from August 2009 was introduced with the initial period of 2007 to 2009 used as a base and roll forwarded into the sensitivity analysis model from 2009 to the current date. This was approved mainly to keep the T20I rankings in line with the same 3 years methodology which is being used in the Test and ODI rankings. 

David also explained, that in T20I individual rankings, weightage was also given to strike rates and therefore a quick 30 odd runs at a SR of 150+ would get more ratings than a 60 ball fifty depending on the winning scenarios.