How do the ICC Player Rankings and Ratings work?

How do the ICC Player Rankings and Ratings work?

Jasprit Bumrah’s exploits in Australia have resulted in him setting records in both the ICC ratings and rankings.

Bumrah, the No. 1 Test bowler in the men’s game, has 904 points in the Test Ratings. He is only the second Indian after Ravichandran Ashwin to score 900-plus points.

The ICC Player Rating is a point-based score assigned to a player based on their performances.

If a player performs better than they have been, the amount of points they score goes up. Accordingly, if the player exhibits a sip in form, they slip on the leaderboard. The ICC Rankings place cricketers on the basis of their Player Rating score.

The ICC Rankings and Rating are both ways to measure the historical performances of players. Instead of referring to only one’s immediate form, his or her numbers across their entire career are taken into account.

Players who meet the qualifying period (generally having played in roughly the last 12 months) are eligible. They are removed from the list when they retire. All players who meet the eligibility criteria have a score, but ICC releases only the top 100.

In March 2021, the ICC implemented a system of updating points weekly. The women’s player rankings are updated on Tuesdays, while the men’s player rankings are updated every Wednesday.

Both the rankings and ratings are weighted in order to give an accurate representation of the kind of involvement a player has had in a match. The ICC takes into account the quality of the pitch and opposition as well when they are allocating players points for their involvement in a match.

For example, runs scored on pitches which are less conducive to batting, or against significantly stronger opposition, are more valuable when calculating points than runs on easier batting pitches or a weaker opposition.

However, the ICC Ratings and Rankings do leave out certain aspects of the game. For example, there are currently no mechanisms to provide rankings to fielding and wicketkeeping.

The metric for ranking all-rounders is slightly different to that of batters and bowlers. The index for all-rounders is calculated by multiplying the points a player has scored from batting and bowling, and then dividing it by 1000.