Australia retains comfortable lead in LG ICC ODI Championship table following annual update

The annual update of the LG ICC Test Championship has seen Australia retain a comfortable lead over its nearest challengers.

Ricky Ponting's side, which secured a third successive ICC Cricket World Cup title earlier this year, is seven rating points ahead of South Africa, with New Zealand a further eight points further back in third spot.

Sri Lanka and India both ease up one place to fourth and fifth positions respectively while Pakistan drops two places after losing three rating points following the update.

Further down the table, the West Indies and England swap places with the Caribbean side jumping up to seventh position, while the most recent addition to the table, Associate side Ireland, lies tenth, ahead of both Zimbabwe and Kenya.

The fact that most changes in the list are minor reflects the fact that the teams have not demonstrated dramatic recent changes in form.

The annual update is carried out to ensure the LG ICC ODI Championship table continues to reflect recent form with older results being discarded.

The table reflects all ODIs played since August two years ago. All ODIs played until the start of next August will be added to this table, so by then the ratings will be based on three years of results and over those three years matches played in the most recent year will carry most weight.

Next August the first year of results will be dropped and this pattern is repeated each August, with the oldest of the three years of results removed to be gradually replaced with results of matches played over the following 12 months.

Thus, once a year, the rankings will change overnight without any new ODIs being played.

This process takes place at the start of August each year. This time has been chosen since it is usually a relatively quiet time in the ODI calendar.