Ireland goes top of the latest ICC Associate ODI Rankings

Ireland has gone top of the ICC Associate ODI Rankings after previous leader Scotland was beaten by Kenya in a one-day international in Mombasa today (Wednesday).

The rankings, which indicate how the five teams below the top 11 are faring, look set to change further over the coming weeks with the ICC World Cricket League and ICC Cricket World Cup on the horizon and with all those sides set to play a large number of ODIs.

Kenya today beat Scotland by 190 runs, dropping the Scots' win rate down to 71 per cent, four percentage points below Ireland.

Scotland will get the chance to repair some of the damage tomorrow (Thursday), though, as it takes on Canada in Mombasa as part of an ongoing ODI tri-series in the east-coast Kenyan city. A win tomorrow will bring Craig Wright's team back level with the Irish.

A win for Canada, on the other hand, will lift it off the bottom of the table and above Bermuda into fourth place.

These are the early stages of the ICC Associate ODI Rankings. Following the ICC Trophy in 2005, ODI status was granted to matches involving the teams that came in the top five (Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Bermuda and the Netherlands) as part of their preparation for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007.

"The ranking system is in place now to provide an opportunity for the top Associate teams to rate themselves in relation to their immediate competitors," said ICC High Performance Manager Richard Done.

"It also provides a context to the ODIs which they now play and gives them a constant benchmark and incentive to improve. But more than that, it gives them a definite pathway towards qualification for the LG ICC ODI Championship," he said.

Once an Associate has played at least 10 matches in total, it has the opportunity to be promoted to the main LG ICC ODI Championship table (currently comprising the ten ICC Full Members plus Kenya).

To gain this promotion, the Associate must either achieve two wins against Full Members or achieve one win against a Full Member and also have won more than 60 per cent of its matches against other Associates on the rankings table.

The Associate would then have a ranking on the main table, initially based on its results in all ODIs played against any of the 11 existing rated teams, i.e. the ten Full Members and Kenya, during the qualifying period. Then, to progress to a rating, it would need to have played at least eight ODIs (over the previous two to three year period, updated every August) against teams who, at the time, were also rated on the LG ICC ODI Championship table.

Currently, the ICC Associates ODI Rankings does not include Kenya and it will continue to appear on the main LG ICC ODI Championship until 2009. Any ODIs played between Kenya and any of the other five top Associates will therefore have no rating impact on Kenya itself but will still count towards

For more information on the ICC Associate Rankings go to:

Remaining fixtures in the ongoing ODI tri-series in Mombasa:

18 Jan - Scotland v Canada
20 Jan - Kenya v Canada
21 Jan - Kenya v Scotland
23 Jan - Scotland v Canada
24 Jan - Kenya v Canada