India out to halt slide in LG ICC ODI Championship table

India will be out to halt its slide down the LG ICC ODI Championship table when its starts its five-match ODI series against South Africa in Johannesburg on Sunday.

Rahul Dravid's line-up was one of the in-form sides in ODIs in the first half of 2006 and at the end of April lay third in the table, three rating points behind the Proteas.

But since then it has won just three of its last 13 outings (with eight losses and two no results), results that have seen it slip to fifth spot, 21 rating points adrift of leaders Australia and 12 points behind South Africa.

An early exit from the ICC Champions Trophy, followed by defeat in its warm-up match at the hands of a Rest of South Africa side, will hardly have boosted India's spirits and neither will the absence of its leading ODI batsman in 2006, Yuvraj Singh, missing with a long-term knee injury.

And the fact India is coming up against a South Africa side that lies second in the LG ICC ODI Championship table and is on home territory only appears to heighten the size of the challenge in front of Dravid's players.

But India still has plenty of positives to draw upon, not least the apparent strength of its bowling stocks. It has three players - spinner Harbhajan Singh and seam and swing bowlers Irfan Pathan and Ajit Agarkar - in the top 20 places of the LG ICC Player Rankings for ODI bowlers with all three of them performing impressively at various stages this year.

And while Yuvraj may be missing from the squad, India still has two players in the batting top 20 - captain Dravid and power-hitter Mahendra Singh Dhoni - as well as Sachin Tendulkar, now fully recovered from the shoulder injury that sidelined him earlier in the year, just outside that select group, in 21st position.

So, it is not all doom and gloom for the visiting side and if it can buck its recent trend of disappointing results, it can make headway back up the table.

A 3-2 series defeat will see it remain on 110 rating points but even that will be enough to lift it back above Pakistan and into fourth spot when the ratings are recalculated to three decimal places.

A 3-2 win will lift India to 112 points (South Africa 119), a 4-1 success will see it rise to third place with 114 points (South Africa will drop to 116) and a 5-0 clean sweep will see Dravid's team move into second place with 117 rating points (South Africa will drop to 113 points, although it will remain ahead of New Zealand).

Of course, those sorts of results will be far from easy to achieve. The first match of the series takes place at the same venue that South Africa scored 438 against Australia earlier in the year and Graeme Smith's side takes the field after reaching the semi-finals in the ICC Champions Trophy.

A convincing series win for the Proteas will see it close the gap on Australia at the top of the table, with a 4-1 success taking it to 124 points (India 108) while a clean sweep of all five matches will lift it to 127 rating points (India 106, dropping it below the West Indies, currently in seventh place), just four behind Ricky Ponting's world champions.

South Africa has two players in the top 20 of the LG ICC Player Rankings for ODI batsmen - Smith in ninth spot and Herschelle Gibbs, who lies 17th - while it can also boast the top-ranked ODI bowler in former captain Shaun Pollock, a player who also lies second in the LG ICC Player Rankings for ODI all-rounders behind Chris Gayle of the West Indies.

Pollock is one of four South Africa bowlers in the top 20, along with Makhaya Ntini (ninth), Andre Nel (19th) and all-rounder Andrew Hall (20th).

The batting list is headed by the ICC ODI Player of the Year Michael Hussey of Australia, clear of Gayle, England's Kevin Pietersen and Adam Gilchrist of Australia. Dhoni is India's highest ranked batsman, in joint sixth place alongside Australia captain Ricky Ponting.

Pollock tops the bowling table ahead of Glenn McGrath of Australia and the West Indies' left-armer Ian Bradshaw. India's top-placed player is Harbhajan, in 11th spot.

The schedule for the South Africa - India ODI series is as follows:

19 November - first ODI, Johannesburg
22 November - second ODI, Durban
26 November - third ODI, Cape Town
29 November - fourth ODI, Port Elizabeth
(1 December - Twenty20 international, Johannesburg)
3 December - fifth ODI, Centurion

The Twenty20 international will be India's first match in that form of the game.

Full details of the current LG ICC ODI Championship and how future results will impact on the table, as well as the LG ICC Player Rankings can be found here