Still hope for England to avoid ICC Champions Trophy preliminary round despite series loss to Pakistan

England can still avoid having to play in the preliminary round of next year's ICC Champions Trophy in India despite their ODI series loss to Pakistan.

Their 3-2 defeat to Inzamam-ul-Haq's side leaves them in seventh place in the LG ICC ODI Championship table and only the top six teams on 1 April 2006 automatically qualify for the second stage of the tournament.*

However, all is not lost for England as they return home to lick their wounds at the end of their tour.

They still have two matches against India before the cut-off date to try and improve their rating and, just as importantly, the middle section of the table either side of sixth spot is incredibly tight with just one point separating four sides.

The three sides directly above England - New Zealand, Sri Lanka and India - are all in ODI action in the near future and with ratings able to fall as well as rise dependent on results it is quite conceivable the race for top six places will go right to the wire.

That is the good news for England. The bad news is that most of their players have dropped in the LG ICC ODI Player Rankings as a result of disappointing performances during the Pakistan series.

England do not now have a batsman in the top ten of the rankings with acting captain Marcus Trescothick dropping seven places to 15th and Andrew Flintoff slipping one slot to 11th.

Kevin Pietersen, who missed the last three matches of the series through injury, eases down two places to 13th while Andrew Strauss has crashed 11 spots to 24th.

Even further down the batting list England players have slipped. Paul Collingwood is down three slots to 44th and Geraint Jones is in 68th position, down five places.

The only riser for England among their batsmen is Vikram Solanki, who made 49 in the final match of the series in Rawalpindi. He is up four places to 48th on the list.

Captain Michael Vaughan, who missed the series through injury, lies in 40th place in the batting table.

For Pakistan it is a different story. They have two players, Mohammad Yousuf (5th, up one place) and captain Inzamam-ul-Haq (7th, up nine places) among the top ten batsmen.

Elsewhere, Shoaib Malik is 30th, Yasir Hameed is 33rd, Abdul Razzaq 34th and Shahid Afridi is in 45th position. Salman Butt is 55th.

The biggest positive batting mover for Pakistan is wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal. His 245 runs, including two hundreds, made him the leading run-scorer in the ODI series and that has propelled him up 28 places to 63rd place in the table.

With the ball, the sole representative from either side in the top ten is fast bowler Naved-ul-Hasan, holding firm at number six. Stephen Harmison drops four places to 11th, Flintoff is up one spot to 13th while James Anderson, England's bowling hero in the final match, is unmoved in 25th position.

Below that are a host of Pakistan bowlers - Afridi (27th, up two places), Malik (30th, up one position), Mohammad Sami (31st, up three slots) and Shoaib Akhtar, who missed the last match of the series in Rawalpindi. Despite that, his earlier exploits have moved him up six places to 35th position.

Flintoff remains top of the LG ICC ODI Rankings list for all-rounders in an unchanged top five. Outside those five positions Afridi has moved up one place to eighth position.

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

* India, as hosts, will automatically qualify for the second stage of next year's ICC Champions Trophy even if they are outside the top six of the LG ICC ODI Championship table on 1 April 2006. If they are outside that top six then the sixth-placed side in the table will take part in the preliminary round.