England toppled former world champion Australia at the top of the ICC ODI ranking table, following an annual update on Wednesday.
Australia has fallen to fourth spot, which is its lowest ranking since the ODI table was launched in 2002 as its outstanding record of 30 wins and eight defeats from 40 ODIs in 2009-10 does not reflect any longer after the update.
England lead second-placed South Africa by one-sixth of a rating point, while world champion India is third — just one ratings point behind England. Australia trails England by nine ratings points.
The annual rankings update is carried out to ensure the championship tables continue to reflect recent form. As such, the new tables only include results from matches played from August 2010, with older results from between August 2009 and July 2010 being discarded.
This is the first time England have topped the ODI championship table since it was launched in 2002. It is also the first time England can claim to be the top ODI team since January 1996, after the rankings are applied retrospectively.
Below the top four, the ODI rankings are unchanged. However, the gap between seventh-placed West Indies and eighth-ranked New Zealand has grown from six to 20 points, while ninth-placed Bangladesh is now only three points behind New Zealand.
Meanwhile, South Africa has replaced England as the top-ranked side on the T20 table.
Australia has slipped from sixth position to ninth, as its excellent results in early 2010 have now been removed, while West Indies has moved up from eighth to fifth after benefiting from the exclusion of its results from early 2010.
Only 11 teams are now ranked on the T20 table. The remaining five sides — Afghanistan, Canada, Kenya, Netherlands and Scotland — have played fewer than eight Twenty20 internationals since August 2010. These sides will rejoin the table once they have played eight T20 internationals.
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