After every match of a national team, every international player of that nation gets few points (it may be negative points also). This points depends on many factors like runs scored by a player, bowling strength of opposing team, run-scoring in the match, team’s innings total, is the bats man not out or not, wickets taken and runs conceded, ratings of the batsmen dismissed, how many overs bowled etc. There are a little difference in test player ranking and ODI (One day international) players ranking.
For example, if a batsman scores 50 runs in a innings he will get different points in different condition. If the opposing combined bowling rating is high, the batsman will get more points for his 50 runs then a low rating bowling attack. If the level of run-scoring is high in that match, the batsman will get less point than a low scoring match for his same 50 runs. His points will also be higher if he scores this run in that innings where his team scores less runs. 50 runs in a 200 runs innings will get more points than 50 runs in a 300 runs innings. If the batsman remains not out, he will get a bonus. Batsmen who score highly in victories team will also get a bonus. He will get more bonus for scoring high ranked team than low ranked. If he scores this 50 runs in the ICC Cricket World Cup matches, he will get another bonus.
Incase of a bowler, let he took 5 wickets in 50 runs. Now he will get different points in different condition. If his dismissed players are high rated, he will get more points than dismissing low rated players. He will get more points for his 5/50 in a high scoring match than a low scoring match. If he bowls a large number of overs in the match, will get some extra credit
Bowlers who take a lot of wickets in victories team will also get a bonus. He will get more bonus for taking wicket against high ranked team than low ranked. If he took 5 wickets in 50 runs in the ICC Cricket World Cup matches, he will get another bonus. Bowlers who do not bowl in a high-scoring innings are penalized. In ODI bowlers gain significant credit for his economy.
Players who miss a Test match for their country, for whatever reason, lose 1% of their points and incase of ODI they will loss 0.50% of their points (for both batsman and bowlers).
A new player starts his carrier from 0 points and until he played sufficient matches, he do not considered for full rating. I think this system set to prevent a new player to go to the top rank, playing only few match of his early carrier with a good performance. . For example, a new batsman who has played 10 test innings will get 70% of his rating (his rating will be between 0 and 700 points). He does not get 100% rating, until he has played 40 Test innings. A new bowler who has taken 30 wickets also gets 70% of his full rating. He does not get 100% until he has taken 100 test wickets.
Total rating system is based on weighted mean of player’s performance, where recent performances get more weight than previous performances. Weighted mean is quite different than normal mean (arithmetical mean) that we calculate in our daily life. In this system you need to set weight of your data before calculating mean. More weighted data has more impact in weighted mean. So in this rating system recent performance has more impact in a players rating.
Today, when I am writing this topic K.C. Sangakkara is the top test batsman, M. Muralidaran is the top test bowler, G.C. Smith is the top ODI batsman and D.L. Vettori is the top ODI bowler in LG ICC ranking.
