I have been working on my cricket index for sometime now. I have finally decided to use it to analyse test matches using it. There were four possible starting dates.  The first is in January where we have the start of the winter season for India. The second would be in May which is the start of the English season. The third would be in November which would be the start of the start of the cricket season in the Southern Hemisphere . The fourth would be December 26th because I believe that the Boxing Day test match is iconic. I finally decided to start my year with the English season. All teams will be starting with zero points. The whole idea behind this is to treat the performance of the team as an investment portfolio. If a player is left out from a match then his points are replaced by the new player. If a player does not have any points then he starts on zero. The total worth of  your portfolio is the value of the current holdings. Similarly the total score of a team is the value of each players points. The scoring system I have used is loosely based on a fantasy league system where points are given based on the performance of their batting, bowling and fielding. 

Under my system for the first test match the performance of England was 32.2% better. England outperformed South Africa in every area of the game. That being said England were only marginally better than South Africa in their bowling. The points scored by Joe Root and Moeen Ali are quite close with Root just edging out Moeen. Joe Root has got all his points from only batting. Everyone else has got points from at least one another criteria. Moeen Ali scored points from batting, bowling and fielding. The numbers indicate that the first innings runs scored by Joe Root made the difference between England winning the match and getting a different result. However it is understandable that the Man of the Match went to Moeen Ali because of his all round contribution. Will this be a trend in the matches to come where matches are won by an all round performance than single contributions.

We know that Rabada will not be playing in the next test match. Francois du Plesis will be fit to lead the team. This means that South Africa will start significantly lower than what they ended the first test with. Going by history it is unlikely that England will change their team for the next test match irrespective of the condition of the pitch. Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe play one test on July 14th which is when the next test match between England and South Africa also starts. By the end of that those test matches we will have two more teams and by the end of the month India will also be in the points. On further consideration I have decided to include the test series between West Indies and Pakistan which was won by Pakistan.