Grades for girls

It means a lot to be world No. 1 in anything. Cricket is no exception; indeed the game is such a statistical heaven for many fans that it's a wonder official player rankings didn't come along sooner than they did.

Male players have known since 1987 who has officially been the best among them - good news for individual sponsors, good news for those wanting dressing-room bragging rights. Now it's the women's turn to find out who is the official No. 1 batsman, bowler and allrounder in the world. The unveiling of rankings for women's ODIs is the latest benefit of the women's game being brought under the ICC's auspices, and will help them market their cricket better.

It has been a while coming, partly because, until the end of the 1990s, there were often fewer than ten women's ODIs a year, which would have left rankings meaningless. Tests are still played too infrequently to be worth measuring as the top ten may not change for many months on end.

How exactly are the player rankings devised, and who decides who is the best? If visions of men in white lab coats and milk-bottle glasses typing furiously into oversized calculators spring to mind, then you're not far off the money.

The original idea was Ted Dexter's - and came from golf. As well as being a former England cricketer, Dexter had a passion for golf, which introduced player rankings in the early 1980s. He saw the potential for them to be used in cricket, and their advantage over averages, and he enlisted maths and computers experts Rob Eastaway and Gordon Vince.

"Averages have only ever been a crude yardstick, especially when comparing players from different countries," explains Eastaway (although some averages don't lie - Don Bradman's 99.94 being an obvious, if freakish, example). "Which is worth more, a century made against second-rate bowling on a flat track, or the same score on a minefield at Headingley against the world's strongest attack? The second, of course, but both will look the same in your average. Likewise, averages give no more credit to the bowlers who remove the top-order batsmen from those who pick up cheap wickets at the tail."

Rankings - which women players will now automatically be eligible for upon playing international cricket - aim to delete these disadvantages. In each match, the strength of an opposition is factored into the worth of an innings, while scoring quickly is given extra credit. A bowler is rewarded for taking wickets but also for bowling economically. Also, more emphasis is placed on recent performances than early matches, helping keep the rankings current.

All of these calculations are done using an algorithm, based on information from a scorecard. As Eastaway explains: "Tempting though it might be to make manual interventions - 'Beautiful cover-drive, give him another ten points!' - we leave it entirely to the computer to crunch the numbers. It's the only way to be equally fair to all players."

I was lucky enough to have an insider's view this year, after being invited to help regulate the rankings from the outset. A panel of six was chosen, and given strict instructions to keep the news under wraps until the methodologies had been perfected. What we needed to figure out was whether the ratings and weightings felt right to us. We were asked to monitor women's international games, and see if perhaps one decent score moved a player up the rankings, or one low score seemed to unfairly drop someone down the list.

Over the last year the panel has been making constant suggestions for modifications, so the rankings reflect current standings as accurately as possible. Women's cricket is played so infrequently (compared to men's) that some players slipped right down the rankings because they had not played any matches, or shot right up after playing only a few.

The feedback helped adjust how points change after an individual performance, so that the rate at which the rankings change is similar in the men's and women's games. The panel also helped point out that decisions were needed as to when to remove retired players from the reckoning, and on a smaller level, how a player was more popularly known: Suzannah or Susie?

Vince and Eastaway further amended some of the weightings because scores in women's matches tend to be slightly lower; and because the volume of women's ODI matches is much lower than the men's, it affects how frequently the top tens change, for example. There will always be some volatility lower down the list, so only the top few players will ever be revealed - as with the men's rankings.

After a nip and tuck, the list of players has now been smoothed out. Any cricketer who reaches 800 points or more - male or female - can be deemed a top-class player at the peak of their game.

Behind the curtains, we have tracked Karen Rolton's recent slip down the rankings and Claire Taylor's ascent to the slot of batting supremo, and watched Isa Guha climb the bowling list, while all the time England became a much better side. India's Jhulan Goswami reigns as the No. 1 bowler, however, and Australia's Lisa Sthalekar is the best allrounder after a consistent year.

There is another benefit for women's cricket - the rankings are another stepping stone in its being recognised widely as a serious game. Within cricket the women are converting more and more new fans with every match, although first-time spectators are admittedly few and far between. The rankings will do much to help media, commentators and spectators in the upcoming World Cup in New South Wales in March, and more when the game is launched on a dual stage alongside the men in the Twenty20 World Cup in England a few months later. Then people will be able to talk with real authority about who the best players are.

Some international men's players even use rankings to help negotiate their contracts. Perhaps one day the same will happen for the women.