Pakistan are still banned so no comment on their Wst Indies series except to note that the series itself was very good, if only they had something to play for.

Forthcoming Series

3 Tests	England	v	Sri Lanka
Pre-rating	1223.97		1076.07
Form	+80.00		-23.05
Expected Margin	England by 124 runs

All the previews for Cardiff indicated a weather-affected game on an executive's pitch. Rain means cloud however, which means swing and potentially an under-prepared pitch. Not least, England are better than competent at exploiting local conditions. Likewise, Sri Lanka have established a reputation for winning at home that inflates their rating. By the numbers, the true margin ought to be about 160, but that has several caveats.

England's rating is inflated by their thrashing of Australia, and could be anywhere from 1300 to 1140. I suspect closer to the latter, as Australia were truly terrible by summer's end, but we'll have to wait until the India series to see how much England's careful planning and intelligent cricket contributed to that.

Sri Lanka meanwhile have been moving backwards of late, as you'd expect with the retirement of Muralitharan, though weather played its part, they were not well placed in their games with a poor West Indies side regardless. With their bowling attack further weakened by the retirement of Malinga and injury worries it is unlikely they'll pose a threat to England with the ball, though it would be no surprise to see a low scoring series early in the summer. Their best hope is, like India, to use the strength of their batting lineup to draw games where they lack enetration, and win those they do. Anything less than a 2-0 or 2-1 victory to England would be a surprise however.

Rankings at 26th May 2011
1.	England	1223.97
2.	India	1200.30
3.	South Africa	1180.15
4.	Australia	1125.02
5.	Sri Lanka	1076.07
6.	West Indies	913.86
7.	New Zealand	885.38
8.	Bangladesh	618.26
9.	Zimbabwe	546.63
10.	Ireland	556.46
11.	Afghanistan	484.71
12.	Scotland	448.84
13.	Namibia	400.40
14.	Kenya	338.92
15.	U.S.A.	296.99
16.	Uganda	268.44
17.	Nepal	196.51
18.	Netherlands	195.69
19.	Canada	177.51
20.	U.A.E.	176.09
21.	Hong Kong	148.65
22.	Cayman Is	134.24
23.	Malaysia	123.90
24.	Bermuda	105.40

Shaded teams have played fewer than 2 games per season. Non-test team ratings are not comparable to test ratings as they don't play each other.

Cricket 27th May, 2011 00:28:00   [#] 

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