Top 5 ODI teams at home in recent times
Bangladesh’s recent performances are not enough to take them into the Top 5Certain interesting aspects come out when you look at the performance of teams, home and away. Four of the top 5 teams with the best record at home feature amongst the top 5 teams with the best record away from home or in neutral venues. That shows that the strong teams have been reasonably consistent. For the sake of good sample size, we have considered only Test playing nations and have left out the likes of UAE, Ireland, Scotland and Kenya, each of which has hosted less than half the number of home games as Test playing nations – something ICC needs to look at.The performance of teams has varied with very few teams being consistent over the entire 5-year period considered. The best teams aren’t the ones with most wins, obviously because some teams have been playing a lot more ODI cricket than others. In fact, Sri Lanka has played 58 ODIs at home compared to New Zealand, which has played just 44.It is obvious why Australia and India have dominated the ICC ODI rankings for such a long time – they are amongst top 3 teams both home and away. Bangladesh doesn’t make it to the Top 5 considering a 5 year timeline, where their W/L ratio is 1.148 (eighth position) but they have been one of the best teams at home in the last 12 months (third behind Australia and India)Factually speaking, Pakistan don’t play at home, but technically, UAE is their home for cricketing purposes. Yet, they don’t make it to the top 5 because even for games played in UAE over the last five years, Pakistan have a W/L ratio of less than one.So here is a look at the teams with the best 5 ODI records at home in recent times.
#5 Sri Lanka
Though they feature in the list, Sri Lanka wouldn’t like the direction they are headed in. Over a 5-year time frame, Sri Lanka have a W/L ratio of 1.642 with 32 wins and 20 losses in 58 games. Over a three-year timeframe, Sri Lanka have a W/L ratio of 1.727, better than that of South Africa, with 19 wins and 11 losses.
However, in the last 12 months, Sri Lanka’s W/L ratio drops to 1.4 as they lost 5 games, winning 7 out of a total of 12 games. Sri Lanka are also 5th placed when it comes to performances away from home, where they have lost more than they have won, unlike the top 4.