It is time to call the T20 series against India for what it actually was. It was a mammoth money making venture which for all intensive purposes was completely meaningless. This is even before the fact that the series was set during the football World Cup. It would have been really great for current and prospective cricket fun’s to have one more test match against Pakistan, the test series against India. A small break in between for the World Cup maybe with one or maximum two T20 matches followed by the ODI. That has not happened and England is sadly out of the Football World Cup. In a sense, this could not have come at a better time.I was looking forward to this series. The more teams that play the more accurate my index becomes. This series would reveal whether the Australia series was an anomaly. At least that is what I thought before the result Kuldeep Yadav grabbed six wickets, Rohit Sharma scored a blistering 137* and Kohli a crisp 75. The two Indian wickets to fall were to spinners. Ben Stokes scored his slowest 50 and England’s slowest ODI 50 in 13 years. I am not sure what to make of it. I will start with an England vs. India analysis after the next ODI. The time has come to check how today’s performance has changed the standings if any.Despite their convincing win; India has actually scored fewer points after their first match than the other teams that have played so far. The standings are belowI have not started with limiting the number of teams that appear on my list. This should happen by the end of the month. Pakistan would have finished their series against Zimbabwe and the matches between West Indies and Bangladesh will also be over. The criteria I will be placing is a minimum of three ODI’s must be places for a team to be ranked and thereby appear on the graph. Further, a player should appear in two games to be eligible for the ODI XI ranking provided his country plays three ODI’s. This would mean by the end of the month Scotland will not be ranked. Callum Macleod will be out of contention for the third or fourth slot. This is, of course, assuming that Virat Kohli, K.L. Rahul or someone else does not usurp that slot by then. Alex Hales may have been in contention but he has been ruled out because of injury. This could potentially mean that we will have a change in the third and fourth slot soon.If Virat Kohli cements the 3 or 4 slot or if Jason Holder does well at 6 then Eoin Morgan may lose his place at 5. That would prove to be interesting as there potentially could be a place for four seamers and three spinners. If Raina does well then we could have eight people who can bowl. This is all theory. As things stand this is how the table stands.

BATSMEN

BOWLERSTOTAL SCOREODI XIIndia may have got fewer points than any other team after their first match. However, the margins between them are so small that it would be statistically insignificant. There is a little bit more than 4.5% between Jason Roy and Rohit Sharma. The difference between Adil Rashid and Kuldeep Yadav is just over 1%. My first rule is to place people where they normally would bat. This would be my first point of competition. When the points are close then the person with the highest points will get picked. Ideally, I would like to have two seamers, two spinners and one All Rounder who bowls fast. However, I have no problem in having only two fast bowlers.There is no change in the top six. I do expect Roy to be pushed out on Saturday unless Rohit Sharma gets a low score and Jason Roy gets a high score or if Roy gets a low score and Sharma gets an average score. Eoin Morgan will get dropped as soon as he is able to break into either 3 or 4. Again this can happen on Saturday. It will be difficult to keep Moeen out of the team. It will be possible for Umesh Yadav and Chahal to break into the team. I am waiting to see how the other ODI series start to shape up and whether they will be able to break into the top XIAs usual, I look forward to your comments.