England v South Africa ODIs

First topic message reminder :

England have named their squad, which sees Broad rested but not Swann:

Cook (c), Anderson, Bairstow, Bell, Bopara, Bresnan, Dernbach, Finn, Kieswetter, Morgan, Patel, Swann, Trott, Woakes

An in form Pietersen, if he ever get to play for England in the future, is not droppable in any format of the game. I would continue to have him opening along with Cook, and depending on form, either Bell or Trott will come in at 3. Bopara, Morgan and Bairstow makes a decent middle order, and Woakes, Broad, Swann, Finn and Anderson would make a pretty decent bowling unit as well. Samit Patel has to be around as he offers a decent spinning option in slow and low tracks with a few runs to add to his case. Tim Bresnan's all-round ability would have him making the squad. Kieswetter can double up as wicket keeping and opening backup. So those will be my core players who would make up England's ODI squad. The 11 would depend on form as well as conditions.

England were an inch away. But...

South Africa will become the first country to top the ICC rankings in all three formats of the game if they beat England on Friday.

skyeman wrote:England were an inch away. But...

South Africa will become the first country to top the ICC rankings in all three formats of the game if they beat England on Friday.

I think you'll find that England were briefly number one in all three. The annual reset, which took place on 8th August, has hurt Australia and dropped them to 4th.

However, that reset did also drop England behind SA in the T20 rankings (slightly confusing, as England haven't lost a T20 series since last June)

skyeman wrote:England were an inch away. But...

South Africa will become the first country to top the ICC rankings in all three formats of the game if they beat England on Friday.

That's not as impressive as it sounds is it? The T20 rankings have only been around for about a year, and what's all this updating the rankings after every game now - maybe they could start updating them after every ball bowled?!

Its a nice bit of media spin anyway!

very confused as to how SA are top in T20s

Mad for Chelsea wrote:very confused as to how SA are top in T20s

Indeed. I can't quite fathom that one.

My only guess is that SA playing so few has distorted the ranking - as far as I can see they won 4 and lost 2 of the 6 they've played since May 2011, whilst England have played 9, winning 6 and losing 3.

Of course, the opposition beaten/ lost to has an impact - SA lost to NZ once and Australia once, and England to WI once, Pakistan once and Sri Lanka once. South Africa beat NZ twice, India once and Australia once, whilst England beat India twice, Pakistan twice and West Indies twice.

which is the same win percentage, more and more confusing to me

I don't think there are enough T20 matches played for the rankings to be meaningful. A "series" is usually 1 or 2 matches. Even the World T20 does not involve that many matches for each team.