How long can England remain number one?

England has done really well
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*England HAVE done really well

sorry, I just don't like it when people do that

Here's a link to the ICC Test Championship, which does show a big difference in games played by the countries.

http://icc-cricket.yahoo.net/match_zone/team_ranking.php

What I would like to be able to see is what matches/series these are worked out by, perhaps by clicking on the relevant country.

It looks like they are over three years, the explanation is complicated and wordy! This would mean that the results in the winter of 08/09 will be coming out next. England lost both tours, India 1-0 and W.Indies 1-0.

Also if you could see which series they are worked out by they could tell you what series you would be losing points on next. At the moment its just a league table with no idea how each country gets to their total points or did I miss something in the frequently asked questions at the bottom of the page.

Please place a link if you can find this.

The world cup was played on the sub continent so some teams had a bit of an advantage over others.

The ODI rankings are pretty decent I reckon with Australia winning against most teams in most countries.

i dont think games in the world cup count towards the ICC Rankings , might be wrong tho

Games in the World Cup do count as per number seven of this link.

http://static.icc-cricket.yahoo.net/ugc/documents/DOC_316C4ECFB1FDC31284D768163CA1CBCD_1295336216354_278.pdf

The rankings are only meaningful if you get a big gap a la Australia a few years ago. For me, although England are #1, the fact that SA can pretty much match our tally before we next play a Test suggests that currently the two are pretty equal, borne out by the recent series in SA which finished 1-1. Number of Tests played is not a major issue - look at the tables and the ranking is based on the number of points/the number of tests, so as long as a side has played, say, 20+ tests in that period they are not at a disadvantage. Should England win a series on the sub-continent and beat SA THEN they can be more confidently called #1 Test side in the world.

We now see how pointless ranking systems can be when the England soccer team move up to 4 in the FIFA rankings.

The problem I have with the football ranking system is teams only play others ouside of their continent in meaningful matches every four years unlike the cricket one where they are playing each other.

When you like at just UEFA, England are also 4th. Both Italy (5th) and France (11th) below us not forgetting they both finished bottom of their group in the last World Cup.

It's a bit odd that England move higher because another team loses in a friendly game.

It's because that loss replaced a win from 2 years back. The system is based on the performance over a period of time, and each new result will effectively replace the oldest one on the list.