2019 T20I Rankings Update - Pakistan to write history, India to drop three places

Its that time of the year when ICC Team Rankings go through annual update.

In this year’s annual update of ICC T20I Rankings:

• Pakistan expected to reach the highest Rating ever achieved by any team in ICC Team Rankings in any format
• India expected to slip to 5^th spot from 2^nd spot
• Afghanistan expected to rise to 7^th spot ahead of West Indies and Sri Lanka
• West Indies expected to 9^th spot from 7^th spot

In Current ICC T20I Rankings, Pakistan is leader of the pack, 13 points clear of the 2^nd best T20I team in the world, India. Behind them, however, there is a cluster of teams separated by fractional points. 2^nd Ranked India, 3^rd Ranked England, 4^th Ranked Australia and 5^th ranked South Africa are separated by just 1.6 rating points between them. This tight-cluster is exactly where the most significant changes are expected to take place in the upcoming update.

RELATED READING: How ICC Rankings Annual Update Works

ICC Rankings changes overnight once every year when ICC updates Ranking Points of each team to keep the Rankings current and accurate. The update takes place on 1st May every year when the ICC ODI Rankings are adjusted according to these predefined rules.....

In terms of Rankings, this is how this year’s annual update is expected to look:

In terms of Rating points, Pakistan is expected to write history. They are expected to touch 146 Rating points, a Rating total that no other team has ever achieved in any format. This will happen largely because of their performance in T20Is in the period between May 1, 2015 and April 30, 2016 getting expunged from the ranking system. They had earned an average rating of 103 points in 20 T20Is they played during this period.

Since May 2016, Pakistan has been in phenomenal form in T20I format. They earned an average rating of 154 in 8 games they played between May 2016 and April 2017 (whose weightage will be reduced to half as a result of this year’s annual update). In 9 games they played during May 2017 to April 2018, they earned an average rating of 150. Although, they lost more games during May 2018 to date than the periods earlier, they still managed to earn an average rating of 143 from the 16 games they played in this period.

As a result, Pakistan are going to attain a rating points tally that is better than the mighty Australians of 2000s in ODIs^[1] and Tests^[2]

Afghanistan is expected to be the next top gainer with a gain of 7.8 in their Rating Points.

On the other hand, West Indies is expected to lose 11.8 Rating Points, largely because of May 2015 to April 2016 period getting expunged from the system. In that period, West Indies won WT20 2016 and earned an average rating of 140 from the 8 T20Is. In May 2016-April 2017 period, they managed only 89 rating points from 8 games. May 2017 – April 2018 was comparatively a better period for them where they managed 113 rating points from 10 games. Their performance since May 2018 is horrendous, however, where they earned only 74 points from 12 T20Is.

In a nutshell, this is how the changes as a result of this year’s annual ICC T20I Rankings update are expected to look:

Note: All the calculations are based on publicly available information including ICC’s Team Rankings calculation formula and match result, and are subject to minor variation from Official ICC update.