ICC To Launch Official Rankings](Yahoo is part of the Yahoo family of brands.)
The International Cricket Council have agreed a tie-up with electronics company LG that will result in the first-ever official player rankings.
The new deal will also see LG, who have been involved with cricket for a number of years, help promote the official team ratings in the LG ICC Test Championship, which was originally launched in May 2001, and the LG ICC One-Day International Championship, which was started around 18 months later.
“The ICC ODI Championship was introduced in October 2002 and today’s announcement means that due to the support of LG we now have a full suite of official rankings,” said ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed.
The LG ICC player rankings will be based on the rankings produced by Ted Dexter Associates (TDA) and sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the last 18 years.
TDA will continue to be involved in the ongoing maintenance of these player rankings.
“We have been looking to develop an official system of player rankings for some time and having studied a range of options we are of the view that these rankings provide the truest reflection of the relative merits of international cricketers,” Speed added.
The new official player rankings have been warmly received by stars of the game past and present.
India legend Sunil Gavaskar, who scored over 10,000 Test runs at an average of over 50 before retiring in 1987, said: "Statistics play a big role in cricket and there are no more interesting statistics than the standings of teams and the relative merits of players.
“The fact that all of this information is now ‘official’ is very good news for the sport and its passionate fans. I congratulate the ICC and LG for the historic association.” Current India captain Sourav Ganguly, who was present along with Speed and Gavaskar at Wednesday’s announcement in New Delhi, added: “These player rankings have been tried and tested over many years and it is excellent news that they have now been officially recognised by the ICC and LG.”