Right, I promised you this a bit ago, it's the workings behind the rankings
Long Post Alert!
First up, we take each of the most recent series played between the pairs of country and split one point between them with regard to the final series result.
Whitewash: 1.00 & 0.00
Drawn Series: 0.50 each
Other results split with test wins (draws count as half) and then co-efficiented to 1.00
2-1 in four tests: 2.5 & 1.5: 0.625 & 0.375
1-3 in six tests: 2 & 4: 0.33 & 0.66
1-0 in three tests: 2 & 1: 0.66 & 0.33
These are then multiplied by two, totalled up and averaged over the number of series played to give
raw values for teams' home and away abilities.
As an example, England total 1.11 at home and 0.90 away.
The other teams then have their raw values multiplied by the raw values of the teams that they have beaten, using the relevant "Home" or "Away" value, and doubled again (to be honest I can't remember exactly why this was doubled... but the numbers turn out better).
For example, whitewashing Australia in Australia (not that it would ever happen) would be worth 1.00 * 1.77 * 2.00 = 3.53 (rounded)
The current highest value gained from one Series is Australia's 3-0 over South Africa last winter... 1.00 * 1.15 * 2.00 = 2.29 (rounded).
No one gains any points from winning at home to Bangladesh currently, they've never done anything other than lost (heavily) away from home, so as far as the rankings are concerned then it's really nothing it should care about.
We then average these to give a home score (after having multiplied it by 1000 to give some nicer-looking numbers) and do the same for away and overall scores.
Easy really...
There's a bit of a flaw in the gross under-valuing of the Bangladeshi games dragging averages down, but this will cancel itself out with time (and these rankings are based on giving credence to victories over quality opponents when it matters) rather than (as an analogy) thrashing defenceless children and this seems infinitely preferable to rating all games equally.
This explains why this system rates Sri Lanka so poorly - their series wins tend to be:
- At Home
- Narrow
- Against Weaker Opposition
Questions?