Stars No.1 in new ICC rankings

The Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars have been unveiled as the world’s No.1 team under the ICC’s new rankings system for women’s cricket, which incorporates results in all three formats into one ranking.

Unsurprisingly, Australia came out on top – as well as being the reigning one-day international and Twenty20 world champions, the Southern Stars won back the Ashes from England in August.

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They also lead the ICC Women's Championship, which is the qualifying tournament for the 2017 Women's World Cup.

England are ranked second on the 10-team table, 10 points behind Australia, followed by New Zealand (109), India (105), West Indies (99) and South Africa (92).

The ICC’s new system treats results from Test, ODI and T20I cricket equally, with points available in every international match.

Previously, there was no official rankings system for women’s Tests, while the ODI and T20 tables were based on results from the most recent World Cups.

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Lanning with the World T20 trophy // Getty Images

Southern Stars skipper Meg Lanning said it was pleasing to be officially recognised as the World No.1.

“We’ve done a lot of hard work in the past few years to win the ICC Women’s World Cup and ICC Women’s World Twenty20, as well as the Ashes recently,” Lanning said.

“We are looking forward to staying at the top of the tree for a long time, which is going to be a big challenge but I believe we have the players to do that.”

The rankings will be updated at the end of each series and are based on the last three years of results. Matches from the first two years of the cycle are weighted at 50 per cent, with matches in the most recent 12 months given a 100 per cent weighting.

Those weightings will change each year during the ICC’s update of rankings, which sees the oldest results dropped from consideration.

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This will happen on 1 October each year, while the annual updates for men's Test, ODI and T20I team rankings takes place in May.

Cricket Australia Chief Executive James Sutherland said he was incredibly proud of Australia’s standing as the best women’s team in the world.

“The side has enjoyed great success in recent years, which is fitting reward for the hard work and dedication of the players and team management,” he said.

“At the same time, the players are exceptional ambassadors for Australian cricket both on and off the field. They invest a huge amount of time and energy into their cricket and play an important role in promoting cricket as a sport for all Australians.”

ICC Women's Team Rankings

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