Saeed Ajmal - Best ODI Bowler of the World- ICC Cricket Ratings Update

Saeed Ajmal - Best ODI Bowler of the World
ICC Cricket Ratings Update after the Pakistan VS Srilanka Series 2011
Well, well, well.... What a Series it was... I am sure most of the Pakistanis must have loved it... A Series win against the No. 2 Best ODI team of the world, when Pakistan was sitting at No. 6 that too with a huge margin. Great work boys... I know most of the Pakistanis must be praising Shahid Afridi for his heroics, but one must not forget that it was due to a team effort plus Misbah's captaincy. Umar Akmal, Saeed Ajmal, Imran Farhat, Younus Khan, Sohail Tanveer, Aizaz Cheema, Umar Gul, all performed well. Misbah though wasn't inform until the final match of the series but his captaincy was flawless. So now the Good NEWS... Pakistan is now ranked No. 5 in the ICC Cricket ratings for ODI teams, trailing by just 4 rating points from 4th ranked Srilanka. Pakistan may have been enjoying the 4th spot if they hadn't lost the only match of the series. ICC ratings for the ODI teams are as follows

Reliance ICC ODI Ranking

	Team	Matches	Points	Rating
1	Australia	33	4291	130
2	India	39	4603	118
3	South Africa	22	2537	115
4	Sri Lanka	33	3693	112
5	Pakistan	34	3664	108
6	England	35	3706	106
7	New Zealand	25	2174	87
8	West Indies	22	1711	78
9	Bangladesh	29	1836	63
10	Zimbabwe	30	1402	47
11	Ireland	12	492	41
12	Netherlands	9	137	15
13	Kenya	7	0	0
Developed by David Kendix			Last Updated: Thu, Nov 24, 2011

Pakistan's next major series is against England early next year, and if the always-in-doubt series against India goes as anticipated in March 2012, Pakistan will have a great chance to improve their ratings as India is current enjoying 2nd spot in the ICC cricket ratings for ODIs. Interestingly Pakistan has the most wins and best Win/loss ratio in 2011 amongst all the test playing Nations. Please see the list below.

Result summary ODI 2011*

Team	Mat	Won	Lost	Tied	NR	%
Afghanistan	2	2	0	0	0	100.00
Australia	25	18	6	0	1	75.00
Bangladesh	17	6	11	0	0	35.29
Canada	10	1	9	0	0	10.00
England	30	11	16	2	1	41.37
India	29	17	9	2	1	64.28
Ireland	12	4	8	0	0	33.33
Kenya	8	0	8	0	0	0.00
Netherlands	10	2	8	0	0	20.00
New Zealand	17	9	7	0	1	56.25
Pakistan	29	21	7	0	1	75.00
Scotland	4	3	1	0	0	75.00
South Africa	15	9	6	0	0	60.00
Sri Lanka	28	14	12	0	2	53.84
West Indies	23	9	13	0	1	40.90
Zimbabwe	17	6	11	0	0	35.29

The result percentage excludes no results and counts ties as half a win. *As of 24th November 2011

Saeed Ajmal Best ODI Bowler of the World

Well as for the players, Saeed Ajmal is enjoying the prime form of his career. After the recent series against Sri-lanka he is now World's No 1 bowler in the ICC cricket Ratings for ODI bowlers, also Shahid Afridi and Muhammad Hafeez are now in Top 10 Bowlers of the world. Afridi is at No. 7 followed by very talented Muhammad Hafeez at No. 8. Which makes three of the Pakistani spinners in the Top 10 Bowlers. Now this is a phenomena which Pakistanis are not used to of.. I mean three bowlers in Top 10 is not an issue but three spin bowlers??? since when spin bowling has become Pakistan's strength, and this is not because Pakistan's faster bowlers didn't perform well, they threatened the Srilankan top order and gave Pakistan early breakthroughs but the spinners didn't give them chance to take anymore wickets at the end of the innings. Umar Gul, Aizaz Cheema, Sohail Tanveer were all good but they took only 12 wickets collectively, add Abdul Razzaq's 2 and Junaid Khan's 1 and the total No. of wickets taken by seamers become 15. Where as Afridi, Ajmal and Hafeez took, 13, 12 and 5 wickets respectively making it 30 wickets total, double the No of wickets 5 seamers got collectively. Below is the Reliance ICC ranking for ODI after the Pakistan Srilanka Series 2011

	Rat.	Name	Nat.	Career Best Rating
1	693	Saeed Ajmal		693 v Sri Lanka, 23/11/2011
2	691	D.L. Vettori		789 v England, 23/02/2008
3	689	G.P. Swann		735 v India, 14/10/2011
4	688	M.G. Johnson		729 v Bangladesh, 03/09/2008
5	678	M. Morkel		704 v India, 23/01/2011
6	660	D.E. Bollinger		676 v England, 21/01/2011
7	655	Shahid Afridi		667 v Sri Lanka, 20/11/2011
8	645	Mohammad Hafeez		645 v Sri Lanka, 23/11/2011
9	644	D.W. Steyn		668 v India, 12/03/2011
10	639	Shakib Al Hasan		717 v Zimbabwe, 05/11/2009
11	637	S.L. Malinga		679 v Bangladesh, 23/07/2007

I have included Lasith Malinga in the list at No. 11. He has taken most wickets in 2011 (48 wickets) followed by Shahid Afridi (40 wickets), whereas Saeed Ajmal is at No. 8 in this list with todal 30 wickets and Muhammad Hafeez at No. 11 with 26 wickets. Below is the list of Bowlers with most wickets in 2011. You can see Wahab Riaz and Umar Gul at No. 16 and17 with 23 wickets each.

Bowlers with Most wickets in 2011

Player	Mat	Inns	Overs	Mdns	Runs	Wkts	BBI	Ave	Econ	SR	4	5
SL Malinga (SL)	24	23	192.1	12	924	48	6/38	19.25	4.80	24.0	0	3
Shahid Afridi (Pak)	24	23	206.3	9	838	40	5/16	20.95	4.05	30.9	2	3
MG Johnson (Aus)	22	22	184.1	10	817	39	6/31	20.94	4.43	28.3	2	1
B Lee (Aus)	19	19	156.1	10	717	33	4/15	21.72	4.59	28.3	3	0
MM Patel (India)	21	20	163.3	8	879	32	4/29	27.46	5.37	30.6	2	0
TT Bresnan (Eng)	24	24	210.2	10	1136	32	5/48	35.50	5.40	39.4	0	1
GP Swann (Eng)	21	21	192.0	11	853	31	3/18	27.51	4.44	37.1	0	0
Saeed Ajmal (Pak)	17	17	143.4	10	529	30	4/35	17.63	3.68	28.7	1	0
Z Khan (India)	14	14	127.5	6	620	30	3/20	20.66	4.85	25.5	0	0
M Morkel (SA)	14	14	102.5	4	459	26	4/22	17.65	4.46	23.7	2	0
Mohammad Hafeez (Pak)	29	26	204.0	9	762	26	2/16	29.30	3.73	47.0	0	0
DW Steyn (SA)	14	14	110.3	6	483	25	5/50	19.32	4.37	26.5	0	1
TG Southee (NZ)	13	13	111.5	9	529	25	5/33	21.16	4.73	26.8	0	1
JM Anderson (Eng)	18	18	156.2	8	873	25	4/18	34.92	5.58	37.5	1	0
JDP Oram (NZ)	12	12	99.0	6	455	23	4/39	19.78	4.59	25.8	1	0
Wahab Riaz (Pak)	13	12	91.4	2	480	23	5/46	20.86	5.23	23.9	0	1
Umar Gul (Pak)	20	19	142.2	11	675	23	3/30	29.34	4.74	37.1	0	0

These have been all the good news for bowlers, as for Batsmen, Pakistan has no batsmen in the Top 10 of the ICC ranking for ODI Batsmen, with 2 fifties in the series and a Man of the match in the final game Umar Akmal is at No. 11. The Next Pakistani Batsman to appear in the Top 100 list is Misbah-ul-Haq at No. 32 followed by Muhammad Hafeez and Younus Khan at No. 38 and 39 respectively, where as Shahid Afridi sits at No. 44. This is not a good news at all. At least 1 of our batsmen must be in the Top 10 and another 2 in the top 30. Batsmen of Younus Khan and Misbah's class must be in the Top 20 atleast if not Top 10. With almost the best bowling attack, if Pakistan can strengthen their batting as well, they can eye the No. 1 spot in the Reliance ICC ODI Rankings.

	Rat.	Name	Nat.	Career Best Rating
1	845	H.M. Amla		890 v India, 23/01/2011
2	792	A.B. de Villiers		823 v Pakistan, 29/10/2010
3	778	M.S. Dhoni		837 v Australia, 31/10/2009
3	778	I.J.L. Trott		786 v India, 23/10/2011
5	759	S.R. Watson		776 v Sri Lanka, 14/08/2011
5	759	V. Kohli		804 v Bangladesh, 19/02/2011
7	752	K.C. Sangakkara		758 v Australia, 16/08/2011
8	741	M.E.K. Hussey		865 v New Zealand, 28/01/2007
9	717	M.J. Clarke		751 v Sri Lanka, 22/02/2008
10	701	J.H. Kallis		818 v West Indies, 04/02/2004
11	680	Umar Akmal		688 v Sri Lanka, 14/11/2011
12	679	G. Gambhir		723 v New Zealand, 04/12/2010
13	675	T.M. Dilshan		766 v New Zealand, 29/03/2011
13	675	R.T. Ponting		831 v New Zealand, 20/12/2007
15	669	D.P.M.D. Jayawardena		742 v West Indies, 19/12/2001
16	668	R.L. Taylor		698 v Australia, 10/02/2009
17	660	S.R. Tendulkar		887 v Zimbabwe, 13/11/1998
18	656	B.R.M. Taylor		656 v New Zealand, 25/10/2011
19	653	R.N. ten Doeschate	NED	666 v Ireland, 18/03/2011
20	651	V. Sehwag		787 v New Zealand, 11/01/2003
21	650	J.P. Duminy		673 v Netherlands, 03/03/2011
22	649	P.R. Stirling		662 v Scotland, 12/07/2011
22	649	Shakib Al Hasan		660 v Zimbabwe, 06/12/2010
24	643	G.C. Smith		785 v India, 25/11/2005
25	631	C.H. Gayle		808 v Zimbabwe, 30/11/2003
26	624	S. Raina		661 v Sri Lanka, 30/05/2010
27	623	M.J. Guptill		626 v Zimbabwe, 22/10/2011
28	617	E.J.G. Morgan		687 v Australia, 30/06/2010
28	617	Yuvraj Singh		787 v West Indies, 26/06/2009
30	614	L.M.P. Simmons		617 v Bangladesh, 15/10/2011
31	609	S. Chanderpaul		777 v England, 22/03/2009
32	606	Misbah-ul-Haq		624 v West Indies, 28/04/2011
33	605	B.B. McCullum		666 v Pakistan, 09/11/2009
34	601	Tamim Iqbal		632 v England, 28/02/2010
35	584	R.R. Sarwan		784 v India, 23/05/2006
35	584	A.N. Cook		587 v India, 14/10/2011
37	580	A.D. Mathews		607 v Australia, 14/08/2011
38	576	Mohammad Hafeez		583 v Sri Lanka, 18/11/2011
39	574	Younus Khan		661 v West Indies, 16/11/2008
40	572	J.D. Ryder		572 v Zimbabwe, 25/10/2011
41	571	H.H. Gibbs		752 v Sri Lanka, 03/03/2003
42	567	W.U. Tharanga		673 v New Zealand, 28/12/2006
43	565	S.B. Styris		665 v England, 28/06/2008
44	564	Shahid Afridi		668 v India, 02/10/1997
45	558	C.L. White		652 v India, 20/10/2010

Good news for the all rounders though. Shahid Afridi and Muhammad Hafeez are in the Top 5 Allrounders list for the ODIs. Surprisingly Muhammad Hafeez is a step ahead of Afridi with just three rating points difference. Here is the Top 10 Allrounders list for the ODIs.

ID	Rat.	Name	Nat.	Career Best Rating
1	415	Shakib Al Hasan		453 v Zimbabwe, 05/11/2009
2	405	S.R. Watson		429 v Sri Lanka, 10/08/2011
3	372	Mohammad Hafeez		372 v Sri Lanka, 23/11/2011
4	369	Shahid Afridi		382 v Bangladesh, 21/06/2010
5	352	J.H. Kallis		506 v West Indies, 09/05/2001
6	301	R.N. ten Doeschate	NED	322 v England, 22/02/2011
7	299	Yuvraj Singh		358 v Bangladesh, 11/01/2010
8	298	D.L. Vettori		355 v Australia, 06/03/2010
9	295	J.D.P. Oram		383 v Bangladesh, 14/10/2008
10	270	A.D. Mathews		279 v England, 09/07/2011