India have slipped to number three in the latest ICC Test ranking on April 30, falling behind Australia and New Zealand. But it was waiting to happen anyway since India was not scheduled to play any Tests after the 0-2 away loss to New Zealand in February!
The highly-valued India Premier League was scheduled for a March end start and would have continued till the third week of May. India would not have played any international games in either of the three formats during this period.
So the drop in ranking was pre-ordained anyway as the rankings take into account only the performance of the previous 12 months, updates happening at the end of each calendar month.
It defies logic, however, that with a global pandemic having brought all sporting activity to a grinding halt why is ICC trying to update rankings as before! If it continues in the same vein, with resumption not likely in the next few weeks either, ICC rankings will become irrelevant.
The administrators need to stay abreast of world developments. Various sports federations have frozen rankings on different dates depending upon the last engagement held where points were at stake. Makes sense since rankings mean more than mere numbers. For some sports disciplines, even Olympic qualification is dependent upon rankings on a particular cut off date!
But cricket?
With a Test championship already in place, where India incidentally continues to be number one, rankings otherwise lose meaning. ICC should be more worried about the Test championship cycle being interrupted and have a contingency plan in place to take the grand finale well beyond the originally scheduled June 2021.
Even at the recent CEOs conference, such mundane matters were hardly discussed. Focus instead was how to push a Future Tours Programme down the throats of reluctant India, Australia and England. As expected it came a cropper!
Next was the attempt to salvage the World T20 scheduled for later this year in Australia. That India and Australia have expressed interest in a bilateral Test series once sporting activities resume hasn't really gone down well with ICC.
At the end of the day, does anyone really care about ICC and its rankings? Sad to say even ICC doesn't seem too serious so why should nations bother.
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