Sri Lanka has retained its position as the number-one ranked Twenty20 International (T20I) side after the annual update of the Reliance ICC T20I Rankings Table was announced on Thursday.
The annual update was released just two days before Pakistan takes on defending ICC World Twenty20 champion West Indies in a two-match series, starting on 27 July in Kingstown, St Vincent.
At the June ICC Board meeting during the Annual Conference week in London, the ICC Board agreed to change the T20I rankings period from three years to four years.
The ICC Board also decided that the annual update to the Test, ODI and T20I rankings should now take place on 1 May each year, rather than 1 August, to better align with the current international calendar. This change has been incorporated in the latest update, and has been backdated to 1 May 2013.
The updated table now reflects all T20I matches completed after 1 August 2010. All T20I matches played until the start of May 2014 will be added to this table, so that by May 2014, the ratings will be based on just under four years of results.
There are no ranking changes as a result of this annual update and most countries’ ratings change by no more than a point or two*.
14 out of the 16 countries with T20I status are ranked, with Afghanistan and Canada yet to play the required eight rated matches. Afghanistan needs to play one more and Canada two more T20 Internationals prior to May 2014 in order to join the rankings.
Opportunity for Pakistan to go to second place
Meanwhile, Pakistan has an opportunity to move to the second place in the Reliance ICC T20I Rankings table if it wins both the matches against West Indies in the upcoming series.
Fourth-ranked Pakistan is currently on 118 ratings points, but could potentially move up to second place with 124 ratings points, thereby swapping places with second-placed West Indies with 120 ratings points.
On the other hand, if West Indies wins both the matches it could gain five ratings points to finish at 132, reducing the gap with number-one ranked Sri Lanka to just two ratings points.
Reliance ICC T20I Rankings (as of 23 July)
Rank (+/-) Team Rating (+/-)
1 (-) Sri Lanka 134 (+2)
2 (-) West Indies 127 (+1)
3 (-) India 121 (+2)
4 (-) Pakistan 118 (-1)
5 (-) England 113 (-1)
6 (-) South Africa 112 (-2)
7 (-) Australia 103 (+1)
8 (-) New Zealand 102 (-)
9 (-) Ireland 81 (-1)
10 (-) Bangladesh 74 (-2)
11 (-) Scotland 62 (-)
12 (-) Zimbabwe 48 (-)
13 (-) Netherlands 36 (-6)
14 (-) Kenya 34 (+2)
Not ranked as fewer than eight T20I matches played since August 2010
Afghanistan 88
Canada 6
* The earliest year of results (2010-11), which would previously have been dropped, is still counted with a weighting of 33%. The weighting for 2011-12 is reduced from 67% to 50%, while the rating year 2012-13 remains at 100%. Therefore, unsurprisingly, the effect of this update is very small. None of the teams’ ratings moves by more than one or two points.
