Associates & the ODI Rankings

Just for the record, and since there's a chance of at least one Associate team earning a promotion to the full rankings during this World Cup, here's a quick explanation of how the ODI rankings work for the Associate nations. How is this relevant to Zimbabwe cricket? Simple: any Associate promoted will be breathing down Zim's neck on the rankings...

Kenya are already on the full LG ICC ODI table, so this doesn't apply to them. For the other Associates with ODI status, there's a separate ranking table maintained by the ICC, which at the moment (following the ICC Tri-Series tournament in Antigua) looks like this:

                       vs Full Members          vs Others
                  Pld  P  W  T  L    %    P  W  T  L    %
1st  Scotland      19  3  0  0  3   0%   16 11  0  5  69%
2nd  Netherlands   14  2  0  0  2   0%   12  6  0  6  50%
3rd  Ireland       10  1  0  0  1   0%    9  4  0  5  44%
4th  Canada        23  1  0  0  1   0%   22  8  0 14  36%
5th  Bermuda       22  3  0  0  1   0%   19  5  0 14  26%

The rules for promotion are as follows:

Once an Associate has played at least 10 matches in total, it has the opportunity to be promoted to the main LG ICC ODI Championship table (currently comprising the ten ICC Full Members plus Kenya). To gain this promotion, the Associate must either achieve two wins against Full Members or achieve one win against a Full Member and also have won more than 60 per cent of its matches against other Associates on the rankings table.

The Associate would then have a ranking on the main table, initially based on its results in all ODIs played against any of the 11 existing rated teams, i.e. the ten Full Members and Kenya, during the qualifying period. Then, to progress to a rating, it would need to have played at least eight ODIs (over the previous two to three year period, updated every August) against teams who, at the time, were also rated on the LG ICC ODI Championship table.

So, under those rules, if Scotland can upset either Australia or South Africa, they'll get a rating on the table, although they'll need to play a further 3 ODIs against the 11 other teams on the table to progress to a formal ranking. The other Associates would need to win two further matches against Full Member sides, as their win percentage against other Associates is below 60%.

Clear as mud? Scotland have the best chance of progressing to the full ODI table, especially if South Africa continue to play like they did against Ireland. As for the other Associates - if any of them could manage to pull off the two major upsets required, they'd be fully deserving of their places, but I don't think it's going to happen this time around...

Comments

guys when u come to the context of team rankin i feel tat with austraila'Å¡ superb team makeup they can be a threat to many teams ...but i feel tat pak hav the potetial to beat them ...anyways i wish india cd do tat