Plenty of flaws in complicated system (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Plenty of flaws in complicated system

5:40pm Friday 10th February 2012 in Simon Parker Column By Simon Parker

It’s times like this when you need professor Stephen Hawking on speed dial.

I was trying to be clever and explain the workings of the Test cricket rankings in a couple of simple sentences.

It would have been easier to build the Hadron Collider from a flat pack.

If you thought Duckworth/Lewis was complicated, then attempt to get your head round the ICC’s international baby.

Simply put (if that’s possible), each team’s rating is based on total points scored divided by the number of matches and series played over the last three years.

Results from the most recent 12 months count double to give form more weight.

Teams get an extra point for winning a Test and half for a draw, with a bonus for winning the series. Still with me?

Then here’s where we throw in the gobbledy-gook.

Each team starts with less than 40 then the winning result is multiplied by 50 points more than the opponent’s rating. Que?

If the gap between the two before the first Test is 40 or more then the rating of the better team is their series result multiplied by ten points more than their previous tally – plus the opponents’ result multiplied by 90 points less than the team’s own rating.

Told you it was pretty straightforward.

Throw in the number of gratuitous bikini shots on the TV divided by references to Bumble and add adverts for the next Super Duper Sunday and you come to a nice easy figure. I make that 23.

England’s current total is 118, so perhaps they used the men with moustaches to play their joker.

Despite getting hammered by Pakistan, they are still classed as the best in the world. Not for long.

The gap to South Africa is just a point and England could lose it if they blow up against Sri Lanka and the Proteas win in New Zealand.

But the fact that we are still currently top of the tree exposes the flaws in the system.

There’s nothing wrong with the idea of a league table but how accurate can it be?

In the 1980s, there was no dispute about the West Indies stranglehold. Similarly, the Aussies ruled the roost a decade later and for the first six years when the ICC system was introduced in 2003.

Nobody could argue with England’s supremacy when they drew in South Africa and then won Down Under.

But they are hardly champion-material when they still struggle to perform on the dusty arenas of Asia and the “dastardly twirly men” that have tied them in knots since the days of Robin Smith fishing helplessly outside his off stump.

They aren’t the only ones. South Africa haven’t won on the sub-continent since edging Pakistan in a two-Test tangle in October 2007.

But that exposes the short-comings with the ICC rankings. Few, if any, teams can triumph in an alien environment.

It works the other way with India. Unbeatable on home soil, they have just suffered back-to-back humiliation in England and Australia.

At present, the number one side on April 1 gets a £110,000 prize – a reward that is expected to treble by 2015. The ICC should be applauded for keeping Test cricket alive in this era of one-day saturation.

There is also talk of a knock-out for the top four to establish the undisputed champions. A noble idea but again, it begs the inevitable question of where it should take place?

Until the top sides show they can handle the conditions as well as the opposition, any league table counts for nothing.

You don’t need a masters degree in cyber-physics to work that out.