Do Rankings Even Matter Anymore?

[Clarke]

Bet u wouldn't have created this thread in the last 2 WCs.

[VRV Singh]

Not sure why you are saying 'anymore'. This is how it has always been with upsets occurring in tournaments, across all sports. Rankings are merely an indication.

[Homerus_Unus]

the thing with sides like NZ is they have some very dangerous players in ryder and taylor. if you get past ryder, mccullum and taylor, its an easy win. but unfortunately for sa, ryder and taylor applied themselves today to give nz a competitive score. ryder will do damage to other sides as well in the coming years if his head is screwed on right.some 70% of the time he may fail. but the 30% of the times he comes good, he will do some damage to the opposition.assuming he realises his talent if i am right, he also put SL out of the champion trophy singlehandedly. their bowling is nothing great but they bowl intelligently and field excelently to put pressure. just do the basics right against lesser sides, silence the few matchwinners they have. the top sides have more matchwinners to silence.

+1

[vipin]

Rankings are the rear view mirror. But probably by Lahori logic we can just gift the world cup to the #1 ranked team.

[Ranjha]

Rankings are a reflection of past over a LONG PERIOD OF TIME. But no team is dominant like Australia of past to guarantee a 100% win. All 7 teams are good and can beat any on their day but if they play each other in a series or over a period of a year or 2, the higher ranked team will most likely beat the lower ranked team. In one off games, anything is possible. SO YES THE RANKINGS DO MATTER. It shows us who has been performaing in the recent past.

[Mariyam]

The bigger question is, in ODIs, where we have a WC to decide who is the best team at periodical intervals, what is the point of even having rankings? The rankings would make sense if we had 50 countries playing the game and we needed to sort countries by their strengths in a world cup. But in the current format and set up, there really isn;t any real purpose of the ODI rankings. Just all you math guys have some more fodder for discussion :P

[Ranjha]

The bigger question is, in ODIs, where we have a WC to decide who is the best team at periodical intervals, what is the point of even having rankings? The rankings would make sense if we had 50 countries playing the game and we needed to sort countries by their strengths in a world cup. But in the current format and set up, there really isn;t any real purpose of the ODI rankings. Just all you math guys have some more fodder for discussion :P

so why even play odi series? just play the worldcup every 4 years if that the only criteria to decide the best team.

[Mariyam]

so why even play odi series? just play the worldcup every 4 years if that the only criteria to decide the best team.

ODI series are played so that television rights can be sold, channels make money and ICC makes money in between World Cups. The WC is the only criteria to decide the best team. Would you rather India won all the games in between two WCs, won all their group games and crashed out in the quarter finals of the WC or that they had an 50-50 record between world cups and go on to win the WC? In the first case, they will be rank 1, and in the second they will be the world champions. What does this ranking give us? Surely not as much bragging rights as the cup does. What exactly does the ODI ranking achieve?

[ViruRulez]

Ranking is indicator of consistency not one off matches.

++ To be fair enough WC is some sort of a gamble in the current format. It is almost well known that all the top 8 test playing nations would go to the quarters unless there is upsets as in last WC. The in the quarters it is just a sort of gamble as all games are knockout from there on. So, I would still give more importance to ranking and it matters a lot though as a trophy bringing the WC home brings more delight. The WC might make as much sense as the rankings if the quarters and semis were rounds of 2-3 rather than knock outs with the teams with most points marching to the next stage and the final was also a best of 3. Then it would have taken into consideration consistency and that would make more sense than even ranking. But in the current scenario it does not make much sense as nearly it is almost a knockout competition to be frank. The first round is just a farce round and hardly makes any sense. The main competition starts in the quarters or in other words knockout stage. So, virtually speaking it is a knockout competition and so winning the WC is great but no way does it give better idea than team rankings.

[ViruRulez]

.......and more such wins will improve your ranking. Thus rankings show how good or pathetic you were in the recent past.

good point :giggle:

[yoda]

It is very simple: Ranking is useless if your team has a pathetic ranking. (eg: Pakistan) Ranking is the best thing since sliced bread if you have good ranking. (eg: India) I remember many Indians biatching about ICC rankings when our ODI rankings used to be pretty low and some rediff ranking would make us look better. :hehe:

[king2be98]

I have to say rankings mean nothing, WCs are where men are seperated from the boys, South Africa may do well in pointless 5 match series against one country, but when it counts they are abysmal. Rankings mean diddly squat in my opinion. Performance under pressure matters the most and although they didn't this time around, they almost did, the Australians have historically been the ones who handle pressure the best. They are champions who rise to the occassion time and time again.

[youngindia]

The WC is the only criteria to decide the best team. [\QUOTE] not ALWAYS possible. The basic logic is teams have to come up with their best and the best of a no 1 should beat the best of a no.2. what spoils this logic is 1. Teams may play to varying amount of their potential on a given day 2. the lesser sides may have afew dangerous players who can spoil the party occasionally as sachin once did. sides have won the WC without exactly being the best team. our 1983 was nowhere near a top side , leave alone a world champion but we beat a far superior invincible team. we didn't win a game vs WI for the next 5 years. Sometimes the best sides win ,sometimes they don't. some of the best athletes for example never won a olympic gold.its just the nature of sport. Also another issue is the nature of one dayers. ODI is an incomplete test of cricketing skills which gives a limited window of 50 overs for a superior team to assert its dominance over a inferior team. WC shud be regarded as the most prestigious trophy.that's it.An undisputed no 1 has to win this trophy atleast once to prove beyond all doubt their greatness. but if a less than top side wins it, it won't add anything special to that side. we struggled as a mid tier side for around 17 years after our win with little improvement. rankings certainly reflects the better teams over a period of time.

[Sir_Afridi]

Rankings means nothing unless all teams play equal number of matches and series home & away in a given period. Just look at at current test rankings. India is number 1 but they have not won a series in Aus,SA,SL & Pak in last years.

[rkt.india]

Rankings means nothing unless all teams play equal number of matches and series home & away in a given period. Just look at at current test rankings. India is number 1 but they have not won a series in Aus' date='SA,SL & Pak in last years.[/quote'] we won in Pak in 2004, drew in SA, Aus, SL...and SL has not won a test in india

[Prakat]

Rankings means nothing unless all teams play equal number of matches and series home & away in a given period. Just look at at current test rankings. India is number 1 but they have not won a series in Aus' date='SA,SL & Pak in last years.[/quote'] Border-Gavaskar Trophy (Australia in India) 2008/09 India 2-0 (4) England in India Test Series 2008/09 India 1-0 (2) India in New Zealand Test Series 2008/09 India 1-0 (3) Sri Lanka in India Test Series 2009/10 India 2-0 (3) India in Bangladesh Test Series 2009/10 India 2-0 (2) South Africa in India Test Series 2009/10 drawn 1-1 (2) India in Sri Lanka Test Series 2010 drawn 1-1 (3) Border-Gavaskar Trophy (Australia in India) 2010/11 India 2-0 (2) New Zealand in India Test Series 2010/11 India 1-0 (3) India in South Africa Test Series 2010/11 drawn 1-1 (3) And that's why we are #1.

[Pak_Forever]

Never really paid much attention to ranking. True they reflect your recent form, but what's the point when teams like India, Aus, England barely play outside and play number of matches compared to others. First balance out the whole fixtures among national teams then ranking would be justifiable and would start making sense.

[Prakat]

Never really paid much attention to ranking. True they reflect your recent form' date=' but what's the point when [b']teams like India, Aus, England barely play outside and play number of matches compared to others. First balance out the whole fixtures among national teams then ranking would be justifiable and would start making sense.

What's your point?

[satyam1729]

Rankings means nothing unless all teams play equal number of matches and series home & away in a given period. Just look at at current test rankings. India is number 1 but they have not won a series in Aus' date='SA,SL & Pak in last years.[/quote'] I think winning doesn't matter anymore. See at Pakistan, as soon as ball tampering has been banned in cricket, they barely win anything. Imran khan was the greatest of them ball tamperor.

[Pak_Forever]

I think winning doesn't matter anymore. See at Pakistan' date=' as soon as ball tampering has been banned in cricket, they barely win anything. Imran khan was the greatest of them ball tamperor.[/quote'] Wana guess the name of the only team which made it straight to four ICC events semis within 4 years?