New Zealand Edged Out of the Competition But Scott Styris is still the Leading Player

The Final of the World Cup 2007 was notable for a fantastic innings from Adam Gilchrist. His innings will be remembered for a long long time as one of the most decisive innings in the history of the World cup.

This fact was also reflected in the innings getting a total of 217 points of which 187 points came for his brilliant innings and 30 from his 3 catches. In the overall rankings it brought him up from the 22nd position to the 7th position.

However, Hayden failed to fire and therefore was unable to challenge Scott Styris for the top spot. .He however can take the credit for being the highest NCR rated player for pure batting. Similarly the highest rating for a pure bowler went to Brad Hogg ahead of McGrath and Muralitharan.

Readers are invited to analyse the rating from the point of view of country wise ranking etc.

New Rank	Previous Rank	Points	Name	Country
1	1	754	Scott Styris	New Zealand
2	2	717	Mathew Hayden	Australia
3	3	710	Sanath Jayasurya	Sri Lanka
4	4	615	Brad Hogg	Australia
5	5	583	Glenn McGrath	Australia
6	7	568	Mahela Jayawardene	Sri Lanka
7	22	567	Adam Gilchrist	Australia
8	6	543	Muttiah Muralitharan	Sri Lanka
9	8	520	Greame Smith	South Africa
10	9	508	Ricky Ponting	Australia
11	12	498	Michel Clarke	Australia
12	15	498	Shaun Tait	Australia
13	10	457	Kevin Pieterson	England
14	13	455	Nathan Bracken	Australia
15	11	448	Dwayne Bravo	West Indies
15	11	448	Jacques Kallis	South Africa
16	14	414	Chaminda Vaas	Sri Lanka
17	29	393	Lasith Malinga	Sri Lanka
18	24	392	Kumara Sangakkara	Sri Lanka
19	16	390	A B de Villiers	South Africa
20	17	384	Herchelle Gibbs	South Africa
21	19	383	Tilakaratne Dilshan	Sri Lanka
22	18	381	Darren Powell	West Indies
23	20	362	Jacob Oram	New Zealand
24	21	355	Ramnaresh Sarwan	West Indies
25	23	342	Paul Collingwood	England
26	31	337	Shane Watson	Australia
27	25	333	Daniel Vettori	New Zealand
28	26	322	Stephen Fleming	New Zealand
28	26	322	Shane Bond	New Zealand
29	27	317	Paul Nixon	England
30	28	315	Mashrafe Mortaza	Bangladesh

The negative rated players list did not undergo any change from the one published earlier. It may however be of interest to the readers to analyse the "Villains of the Match" and find out who got the most "Villain of the Match Award".

While the ICC declared McGrath as the player of the World Cup deservingly for being the highest wicket taker in the tournament, NCR rating could only place him at the 5th place. Similarly Hayden who was the highest run getter had to be content with the second spot in the table. These reflect the difference between NCR rating and other systems and probably NCR rating has proved to be a good indicator of the overall contribution of a player in a tournament. The experience during this world cup has given rise to a few more thoughts which will be making the ratings better in the days to come.

Naavi records the appreciation for the volunteers who helped in managing the rating over an extended period of nearly 45 days. A special appreciation is due in particular to Ajesh Nag for his prompt and accurate work during the tournament.

Readers are welcome to send their comments to naavi@vsnl.com about their impressions on the rating methodology and how it has worked.

We hope that NCR ratings can be adopted by BCCI to rate domestic players during domestic 50 over/20 over matches so that each year we will have a clear and transparent evaluation of the contribution of the players. A good sponsor who can institute awards will help the cause of providing the necessary exposure to good performers. I hope such an award would be dedicated to one of India's best one day players of our time...perhaps the one who lifted the world cup in 1983..Mr Kapil Dev.