ICC launches T20 rankings, India at number five

In a bid to bring more excitement to the T20 internationals, International Cricket Council (ICC) launched the official T20 rankings on Monday. Though there were ODI and Test rankings already in place, no such ranking was available for the T20 format. The new T20 ratings are as per the ICC policy of equal importance to all the three formats of the game. On a 30-minute special ICC Cricket World Radio Show, ICC General Manager (Cricket) David Richardson said, “The ICC has a policy that the three formats are given equal importance and attention and at the moment we have team and player rankings in place for both Tests and ODIs but not for T20 Internationals. This launch is an important thing for the T20 format.“

On the need of ranking system, Richrdson said, “Rankings are always going to be a talking point, that’s what they are intended to do, to generate interest in the game and generate context.” As per the ICC, the T20 rankings are on similar lines that the Test and ODI rankings follow. Not only the career of a player, but the strength opposition, recent performances etc. will be given emphasis while rating the players and teams. However, there are a few differences in the T20 ranking system compared to the test and ODI system. These differences have been adopted taking into account the fact that T20 is more about scoring runs than taking wickets. In a typical T20 match it is highly unlikely for a team to lose all its wickets.

Run scoring pace, number of not outs etc. are the factors that will add extra weightage to a batsman’s rating points. Similarly, economy rate of the bowlers will be given more credit while calculating the rating points of a bowler.

In the first list of rankings that was launched, England topped the team rankings with Sri Lanka at no. 2. England has a rating point of 127 whereas Sri Lanka has 126 points. India is at no. 5 in the rankings with 112 points. Among the batsmen, England’s Eoin Morgan is adjudged as number one with a total of 832 points. New Zealand’s Brendon McCullum and England’s Kevin Pietersen are at no. 2 and 3 respectively. Suresh Raina is India’s highest placed T20 batsman at rank 5. Among other Indian batsmen, Yuvraj Singh is at no. 12, Gautam gambhir at 16 and MS Dhoni at 33.

In the bowling department, spinner Ajantha Mendis is the number one bowler at the moment followed by England’s Graeme Swann and Pakistan’s Saeed Ajmal. It is noteworthy that the top 3 places have gone to 3 spinners in a format which is believed to be the graveyard for spinners. The highest placed Indian bowler is Harbhajan Singh at number 9. Yusuf Pathan, Asish Nehera and Zaheer Khan are ranked at 37, 42 and 57 respectively. Shane Watson is world’s best T20 all rounder as per the rankings. Sahid Afridi is placed at the second position. India’s Yuvraj Singh is at the 6th rank.

Rankings for the women’s T20 was also launched on the occasion.

ICC T20I Rankings:

Team Rankings: