Restructure the method!

About 3 years ago, Australia lost its position on the top of the table after the Ashes defeat to then #5 ranked England in August 2009. Before South Africa lost its crown to India (at the end of 2009), the team couldn’t topple the #5 ranked England in a 4-match series at home. India held the fort for about 20 months before going down humiliatingly to the #3 ranked test side. Today the currently #1 ranked test team was whitewashed by the #5 ranked Pakistan, which has narrowed the difference between the top 2 sides in the table to merely one integer. These are excerpts of the rampant fluctuations the test match rankings table has undergone for the last couple of seasons. The big picture would suggest fierce competition at the top but reality, unfortunately, deviates far from it. No team has looked good to hold onto the crown for long; losing its pedestal with similar humiliation in each case.

There are nuances while you study these fluctuations; the last couple of seasons have been good for the bowlers of all types which is an indicator of the kind of tracks prepared resulting in  tougher terrains for the under-prepared and partially unskilled batsmen for confronting these situations. While you could argue that bowlers have now got their fair share of success in this format, the frequency of bowler-domination hasn’t done much good to the level of competition; teams have appeared ominous in familiar conditions but found away tours alien. This does not for a moment discourage the preparation of tracks assisting bowlers, but underlines the influence of limited-overs cricket and more of it in an international calendar is now clearly evident. T20 cricket was perceived as the biggest threat to the existence of test match cricket and looks like this colorful version of the game has indeed had an influence on the quality of test match cricket, which has diluted drastically.

So why is this background being put up? Well, to partially answer questions like: ‘Which is the best test side at the moment?’, ‘Does the #1 ranked side deserve its position?’, because these questions have all of a sudden become too tough to answer. Where does the problem pop-up while you answer the above questions - the ranking system? the quality of cricket? or something else? The illustrations cited earlier and the arguments proposed later would conclude that test match cricket today has reached a stage when there is no single ‘world-beater’ but the quality distributed amongst a few, which narrows the rating points on the rankings table, consequently fluctuating the positions on the table more frequently.

Some lesson to be learnt from all the thoughts so far: the ranking computation needs a revisit and more of some restructuring. While ODI & T20 cricket has a multi-national tournament with a periodic frequency to crown the best side in the format at that moment, test cricket doesn’t have anything like this. A test championship was proposed, could materialize 5-7 years later, but even that wouldn’t throw up a ‘real’ champion unless the ‘home-advantage’ effect is negated, if ‘home-favored’ competition is the order of the next decade. Leaving the proposed test championship alone, the ICC rankings table is the best attempt thus far to arrange teams according to performances. For all the right things associated with the statistical computation of the rankings, there appear some loopholes with regards generating the appropriate ordering of teams for the current scenario. The rankings table considers recent performances over a period of 4 years split into two parts of 2 years. If test cricket will throw up one-sided games over the next decade or so, then this period isn’t good enough to justify rating points. While the rating points are estimated on the basis of opponent position on the table, the above examples prove this basis to be incomplete.

Is there an alternate way then? There could be two ranking tables viz. Home & Away. The two systems could throw up unusual positions but would be justified for the difference in the performances of sides is marginal: exceptional at home, lame away. It is an exaggerated statement to paint all sides with the same brush, but most sides belong to the same bracket. India’s recent performances advocate for the above system; the team’s away performances continued to be dismal from England to Australia inspite of a good home series in between. If the two ranking system isn’t feasible, then the current system should be modified to say the least. Away wins should credit more points, perhaps twice that for home wins and points should be awarded for margin of wins. The 'recent performance history' should be cut down to latest 15 tests or maybe 18 months. Test cricket is complex enough to demand a complex system to work out the best in the pack. While the followers of the game ponder upon the quality of cricket, it is imperative that the administrators of the game work upon devising the most appropriate formula to rank teams!