Match thread: Zimbabwe vs Ireland (incl. Uganda tour match)

[Dr_Situ(ZimFanatic)]

With priceless 10-5-7-0, Gripper is history. Strangely the record was not broken till 7 years. Price is and was always economical but the problem is wickets. Thankfully this is not so in tests as he has consecutive 5 wicket halls against Aussies.

[maehara]

Zim win by 156 runs, with Dabengwa being statistically our best bowler on the day (!). I can live with that...

[Dr_Situ(ZimFanatic)]

Congratulations to all well wishers of fascinating Zimbabwe for 156 run hammering of Ireland.
With this win, i hope we topple them on ICC ranking and avenge our tied match.
Normalcy restored.

[maehara]

Series Table

Code: Select all

             Pl  W L T NR   Pts     NRR
1 Zimbabwe    1  1 0 0  0     4  +3.120
2 Kenya       -  - - -        0       0
3 Ireland     1  0 1 0  0     0  -3.120

ICC ODI Rankings: after 1st Match

Code: Select all

                Pl    Pts  Rating  Ch
9  Bangladesh   30   1420      47
10 Zimbabwe     16    309      19  +3
11 Ireland       9    140      16  -6
12 Kenya         3      0       0

(Ch = change in rating over course of series)

A win by Ireland over Kenya tomorrow would put Ireland back on 19 points - but Zim would still be the higher-ranked team when the ratings are calculated to 3 decimal places (19.000 vs 19.313). Kenya would remain on zero.

A Kenya win would see Kenya take 11th place on 17pts, and Ireland fall to 12th with 9pts.

[brmtaylor.com admin]

So what do we have to do to maximise our ICC ranking for the series? Beat Ireland by a large margin each time and hope that Ireland (and Zimbabwe) continue to beat Kenya, thus allowing for a Zimbabwe vs Ireland final and another opportunity to take points off them?

[maehara]

So what do we have to do to maximise our ICC ranking for the series? Beat Ireland by a large margin each time and hope that Ireland (and Zimbabwe) continue to beat Kenya, thus allowing for a Zimbabwe vs Ireland final and another opportunity to take points off them?

Pretty much - because Kenya have so few games played, they potentially get a huge score for a win in this tournament - if they win all their group matches, they'll end on 37pts, well ahead of Zim. We can't catch Bangladesh, but if we win all our matches, and Kenya lose all theirs (Ireland picking up the points in between), then at the end of the group stage it would be Zim in 10th on 25pts, Ireland in 11th on 18pts, Kenya still on zero.

[maehara]

Beat Ireland by a large margin each time

Oh - and winning margin makes no difference. Same ranking points on offer whether you win by 1 run or 300 - which seems a little unfair to me, but that's how it works.

Have a play with this for all the permutations (works in IE only, damn the developer...)

[brmtaylor.com admin]

How could Ireland gain 3 points by beating Kenya if Kenya have no points to concede? Are you able to go into negatives?

[maehara]

How could Ireland gain 3 points by beating Kenya if Kenya have no points to concede? Are you able to go into negatives?

Number of points on offer is based on the difference in rating points between the two sides, plus some adjustments that may apply (eg if the difference in rating between the two sides is more than 50). You can't go negative, but there'll always be something on offer.

ICC used to have a page up with the calculation method - it's gone now so I'm working from memory, but I believe that even if both sides are on the same number of rating points, there's an adjustment applied to make sure there are some points on offer.

Because rating points = points / matches played, the fewer matches you have on the table, the bigger a difference any given match will make to your rating. Kenya will benefit from this over this tourney, if they can win anything.

EDIT: God bless Wikipedia, they have the calculation method.

[brmtaylor.com admin]

How could Ireland gain 3 points by beating Kenya if Kenya have no points to concede? Are you able to go into negatives?

Number of points on offer is based on the difference in rating points between the two sides, plus some adjustments that may apply (eg if the difference in rating between the two sides is more than 50). You can't go negative, but unless the two teams playing both have the same number of rating points there'll always be something on offer.

Oh okay, that makes sense then. It would be good if we can close the gap with Bangladesh... there's no doubt in my mind that Zimbabwe are improving, but so are Bangladesh. My concern is that they might be improving at a quicker rate than us. I think the one thing Zimbabwe has over Bangladesh is the quality individual players. Only Ashraful and Mashrafe come to mind as outstanding players for Bangladesh, while Zimbabwe has Taibu, Masakadza and Price as the proven performers.