Victory will lift England to third in official ODI table

If England can sustain the form it showed against South Africa this week it could end the month ranked as high as third in the official One-Day International table, a leap of five places from where it started the summer.

England's improved ODI form has already seen it move up one place to seventh in the official table. With one more game against the higher-rated South Africa and the removal of a string of poor results from the ratings calculation, England could make the biggest move since the official ICC ODI table was introduced in October 2002.

But it is essential that England beats South Africa if it is to make its move. Such is the evenness of the six teams ranked from third to eighth in the table that defeat on Saturday will put England back in eighth after the table is updated at the end of the month.

ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Speed explained that the ratings are updated on an annual basis to reflect current form.

"England stands a terrific chance of making a dramatic move up the official ODI table," said Mr Speed.

"The results from 2000-01 will soon become irrelevant so the new ratings will still reflect the current form of all teams, including the success of this new-look England squad."

The official ODI ratings are updated every August. The process sees team results that are more than two years old discarded from the calculations. As Saturday's match is the last ODI to be played in the world before this year's update, once the outcome of the match is know it will be possible to predict the updated ratings.

England could be a major beneficiary of this update as August 2000 to July 2001 was a barren period which saw the team win only two of 14 ODIs it played.

The new post-update standings for the ICC ODI Championship will be announced on Monday July 14 with the ICC Test Championship standings announced later in the month.

The standings plus a full explanation of the annual update process and commentary on major changes will be distributed to the ICC media list and will be available on the ICC website from 3pm (UK time) on the relevant dates.

ICC media contacts: