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Not the greatest reading, unfortunately - while their one win did give Zimbabwe some much-needed points in the ODI rankings, the individual players rankings have suffered as a result of some poor performances across the series. Stuart Matsikenyeri, Chamu Chibhabha and Hamilton Masakadza all move up a few places in the batting table, but it's all downhill on the bowling front.

ICC ODI Rankings:
                Pl   Pts  Rnk  Ch
8  West Indies  32  3192  100  -2
9  Bangladesh   26  1238   48
10 Ireland       8   227   28
11 Zimbabwe     26   508   20  +3

ICC Player Rankings (Batting):
Now Was                Pts   Best Rating
 47  37 E Chigumbura   536   573 v South Africa, 22/08/2007
 50  49 BRM Taylor     523   579 v Bangladesh, 04/08/2006
 55  54 V Sibanda      512   520 v Ireland, 15/03/2007
 64  68 S Matsikenyeri 491   501 v West Indies, 02/12/2007
 79  82 CJ Chibhabha   441   450 v Bangladesh, 10/02/2007
 80  94 H Masakadza    436   436 v West Indies, 07/12/2007
 90  87 SC Williams    414   432 v South Africa, 25/08/2007

ICC Player Rankings (Bowling):
Now Was                Pts   Best Rating
 29  28 P Utseya       594   651 v Bangladesh, 06/08/2006
 61  57 GB Brent       470   513 v Bangladesh, 25/11/2001
 78  76 T Mupariwa     429   486 v Bangladesh, 02/08/2006
 78  76 AJ Ireland     429   453 v Bangladesh, 10/02/2007
 83  80 EC Rainsford   422   472 v Bangladesh, 13/10/2006

For the curious, here are Zimbabwe's standings, and the players' positions in the ICC one-day battng & bowling rankings, prior to the start of the West Indies series. We'll compare these with where they stand at the end of the series. According to the ICC, Zim need to win the series 4-1 to overtake Ireland and regain 10th place in the ODI table - a (very unlikely) 5-0 clean sweep would leave Zimbabwe on 35 points. Sadly, their new site seems to have done away with the ODI predictor, so I can't work out where the other combinations would leave us...

ICC ODI Rankings:
                Pl   Pts  Rnk
8  West Indies  28  2853  102
9  Bangladesh   26  1238   48
10 Ireland       8   227   28
11 Zimbabwe     22   370   17

ICC Player Rankings (Batting):
                  Pts   Best Rating
37 E Chigumbura   558   573 v South Africa, 22/08/2007
49 BRM Taylor     528	579 v Bangladesh, 04/08/2006
54 V Sibanda      505	520 v Ireland, 15/03/2007
68 S Matsikenyeri 477	477 v South Africa, 26/08/2007
82 CJ Chibhabha   424	450 v Bangladesh, 10/02/2007
87 SC Williams    422	432 v South Africa, 25/08/2007
94 H Masakadza    403	403 v South Africa, 26/08/2007

ICC Player Rankings (Bowling):
                  Pts   Best Rating
28 P Utseya       588	651 v Bangladesh, 06/08/2006
57 GB Brent       491	513 v Bangladesh, 25/11/2001
76 AJ Ireland     438	453 v Bangladesh, 10/02/2007
76 T Mupariwa     438	486 v Bangladesh, 02/08/2006
80 EC Rainsford   430	472 v Bangladesh, 13/10/2006

The ICC have completed their annual update of the Test rankings, where the 3rd year's matches drop out of the calculations. This leaves Zimbabwe with less than the 10 minimum ranking matches withing the calculation period (they have 8), so they drop out of the table for the time being.

Those 8 matches are still valid and recorded, though - should Zimbabwe somehow manage to play 2 Tests between now and next August (unlikely, but still...), they would be reinstated to the table with most of their points intact.

Bangladesh, meanwhile, benefit from their oldest matches being removed to the tune of 4 points, meaning that they weren't in the unfortunate position of having no points for long.

An update of the ODI Rankings is also due before 1st August. Expect Zimbabwe to lose out on that front, as well...
ICC Test Rankings

The ICC have updated the LG ODI rankings table, now that Ireland have qualified - and the bad news for Zim is that Ireland have entered the table ahead of them, coming in at 10th place with a rating of 29, ahead of Zimbabwe who are on 22. The bottom end of the table currently looks like this:

                Pl  Pts    Rnk
 9  Bangladesh  42  1892    45
10  Ireland     11  317     29
11  Zimbabwe    36  779     22
12  Kenya       11  0       0

Another little bit of humiliation thrown Zimbabwe's way, then, as we're now the only Full Member side to be ranked below an Associate - although I don't think anyone can argue that Ireland don't deserve their ranking... Hopefully there'll be some more matches arranged between these sides in the not-too-distant future.

UPDATE: Apparently the ICC's maths is defective - 317 divided by 11 is 29, not 37. The table's now been updated accordingly on the ICC site.

Now that the South Africa series is out of the way (thankfully, some may say), time for a look at the various statistics to see how Zimbabwe have progressed since the last time the two teams met in SA, which was the 3-match series in early 2005. Zim started that series with a much-weakened squad, but even the return of Heath Streak, Andy Blignaut and other during the series didn't help avoid one of the most one-sided series on record - so really, the only way Zimbabwe could really go for this series was up, right? Well, not quite.

To start with, though, two little stats I like to use to paint things in a slightly better light (and to show that you an prove anything with statistics): SA played Australia - the world's #1 ODI side, lest you forget - earlier in the year. In one match, they put 438 runs on the board - against Zim they could "only" manage 418. Over the course of the Australia series, SA scored an average of 262, while against Zim they "only" managed 258. So we must be better than the Australians, right? I joke, of course.

Let's quickly move on to the serious stuff, which you'll find below the cut.

Just before the Bangladesh series, we took a look at where Zimbabwe's players stood in the LG ODI player rankings. With the series out of the way, it's time for a quick look at who's improved - and in one case, who hasn't.

First, a few points to note. Zim's loss in the final game in the series dented the scores of most of the players who took part, so you'll see some players have fallen back from personal bests reached during the 3rd & 4th ODIs. It's also worth bearing in mind that scores are weighted until a player has played 100 innings / taken 100 wickets, so most of Zim's player scores are restricted under the weighting formula (more on that at the LG ICC Rankings website, here.) Now without further ado, on to the rankings.

Batting Rankings

Before      After
Pos  Pts    Pos  Pts
46   543*   40   576     Brendan Taylor      (PB of 579 during series)
77   436    72   451     Elton Chigumbura
            83   419     Stuart Matiskenyeri (PB of 425 during series)
=86  401    87   391     Barney Rogers
            90   387*    Vusi Sibanda
=86  401    95   374     Chamu Chibhabha
95   396    99   360     Andy Blignaut
97   359                 Dion Ebrahim

(* = personal best)

So it's goodbye to Dion Ebrahim, victim of being sidelined in the current setup, but hello to Stuart Matsikenyeri and Vusi Sibanda. Sibanda's finally beginning to live up to his promise - for the first few series he played in, his performances with the bat certainly didn't live up to his billing - and his appearance in the rankings with a personal best score reflects that. Matsikenyeri also comes in impressively far up the table for a debut, but it's a fair position looking at his performances this time around.

You may have been expecting Brendan Taylor to have made better progress up the table after his 3rd ODI heroics, but the ODI rankings actually work against batsmen who are not out at the end of the innings:

(Batsmen) only get a small amount of credit for being not out (because a not out batsman is, by definition, batting at the end of the innings when the value of his wicket is low).

In this case, I'd have to say Taylor's ranking really doesn't reflect the true worth of his performances in the series.

Chamu Chibhabha is the only current Zim player to drop in the rankings - partly due to not having played in three games in the series (points are lost for not appearing), but also because his 2.50 average from the two innings he did play are well below his career average of 29.44. Definitely not a good series for him.

Bowling Rankings

Before      After
Pos  Pts    Pos  Pts
28   574*   17   651*    Prosper Utseya
68   437*   54   481     Tawanda Mupariwa    (PB of 486 during series)
69   434    74   423     Douglas Hondo
            80   412*    Ed Rainsford
86   387    92   377     Andy Blignaut
            94   375     Blessing Mawhire    (PB of 394 during series)
87   384    95   374     Tinashe Panyangara

(* = personal best)

Prosper Utseya breaks into the top 20 - with the ODI bowling rankings being very rewarding to those with low economy rates, that's no surprise at all. The question with Prosper is how far he can rise, and if he can stay as miserly against stronger opposition - something the upcoming series against South Africa should give us a few pointers to. Tawanda Mupariwa also makes good progress up the table, thanks to 7 wickets from his three matches. Surprising not to see Hamilton Masakadza there yet - more wickets taken than Mupariwa at a lower economy rate - but he can't be too far out of the running.

Overall, then, Zim have three more players in the rankings than they had before the series (Dion Ebrahim dropping out, four new players in), and all the current players with the exception of Chibhabha have made progress up the tables. Progress indeed - but there are sterner tests ahead and it remains to be seen if the players can maintain their rankings against tougher opposition.

Just for curiosity, here are the positions of Zimbabwe's entries in the ICC LG Top 100 rankings for ODI batting and bowling - mainly as it'll be interesting to compare with where things stand at the end of the Bangladesh series. Some of the players listed no longer play international cricket, so their standings will obviously drop, but the current players listed should all be hoping to improve their standings.

LG ICC ODI Batting
46 Brendan Taylor (543 - personal best)
77 Elton Chigumbura (436)
=86 Barney Rogers (401)
=86 Chamu Chibhabha (401)
95 Andy Blignaut (369)
97 Dion Ebrahim (359)
(the top-ranked Bangladeshi batsman is Habibul Bashar at 65th, but they have more players in the top 100 than Zimbabwe at present)

LG ICC ODI Bowling
28 Prosper Utseya (574 - personal best)
68 Tawanda Mupariwa (437 - personal best)
69 Douglas Hondo (434)
86 Andy Blignaut (387)
87 Tinashe Panyangara (384)
(Bangladesh's top-ranked bowler is Mohammed Rafiq at 25th, one of 7 Bangladeshi players in the top 100)

The LG ICC rankings don't seem to be taken too seriously by most international players, but they do provide a handy benchmark for checking which players may have improved over the course of a series. We'll see how things stand in two weeks' time...
LG ICC Player Rankings