SA dethrone Australia in ODI rankings, India at heel

Dubai, January 30, 2009: South Africa have gone to the top of the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship table following its 39-run victory over Australia in Perth on Saturday. India are on their heels at the third spot and sniffing the top spot.

South Africa’s 4-1 series win puts them ahead of Australia by a fraction of a ratings point but Ricky Ponting’s men have immediate chance to regain number one place

The match may have been a dead rubber as far as that series was concerned with South Africa having already won three out of the previous four matches but there was still plenty at stake and Johan Botha can now claim to be captain of the highest-ranked side in the world.

The Proteas had been three ratings points behind Ponting’s men going into the fifth and final ODI of the series but now they move ahead by a fraction of a point and top the ladder for the first time since April 2008 when they briefly wrestled number-one spot from Australia’s grasp.

But the good news for Australia is that it has an immediate opportunity to go back on top as its five-match series against New Zealand begins on Sunday. The table is so tight at the top that victory in that first ODI will send Australia right back to where it has spent the vast majority of the past seven years since the rankings were devised.

Meanwhile, India are hovering just outside the top two and is now only five ratings points behind South Africa and Australia after winning the first match of a five-ODI series in Sri Lanka. Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men will be doing their best to keep the pressure on the top two with plenty of ODI cricket coming up on the horizon.

At the other end of the table, Zimbabwe has moved up one place to 10th in the rankings after winning the opening two matches of its five-ODI series in Kenya. Prosper Utseya’s team has now beaten the home side in the two games in Mombasa and so heads to Nairobi full of confidence for the remaining three.

That means Ireland slips to 11th position while Kenya loses ratings points and stays in 12th spot. However, if Kenya was to win the remaining three matches, it would move to 11th place, just one ratings point behind the Irish while Zimbabwe would fall all the way to 12th and last spot on the table. So there’s still plenty to play for in the series.

Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship (as of 30 January)

Rank Team Rating

1 South Africa 125
2 Australia 125
3 India 120
4 New Zealand 113
5 Pakistan 111
6 England 108
7 Sri Lanka 106
8 West Indies 91
9 Bangladesh 46
10 Zimbabwe 20
11 Ireland 19
12 Kenya 1