Eighth-ranked West Indies will aim to create some daylight between itself and ninth-ranked Pakistan on theMRF Tyres ICC ODI Team Rankings when it hosts world champion Australia and third-ranked South Africa in a tri-series from 3-26 June. A total of 10 matches will be played in the triple-league format with the top two sides progressing to the final.

West Indies leads Pakistan by just one point on the ODI team rankings, but trails Australia by 36 points and South Africa by 24 points. As such, because the rankings are weighted to reflect this difference, every West Indies win over Australia or South Africa will earn it valuable points.

If Australia remains unbeaten in the series, then it will collect five points and move to 129 points, while South Africa will gain six points and rise to 118 points if it makes a clean sweep of the series. However, West Indies will vault from 88 points to 106 points (a gain of 18 points) if it wins all its seven matches.

Even if the West Indies wins one match each against Australia and South Africa, then it will move from 88 points to 91 points, thus opening up a four-point advantage over Pakistan.

With England and the next seven highest-ranked sides on the MRF Tyres ICC ODI Team Rankings on 30 September 2017 to qualify directly for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, any points earned by the sides in the lead up to the cut-off date will be critical in determining which sides progress automatically for the ICC’s pinnacle 50-over tournament and which sides battle out for the two remaining positions by featuring in the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018.

While the series in the Caribbean will be in full swing, Zimbabwe will host India for three ODIs in Harare on 11, 13 and 15 June, and Sri Lanka will travel to Ireland for two ODIs to be played on 16 and 18 June.

If India wins all the matches against 11th-ranked Zimbabwe, then it will gain one point and move to 110. However, if India wins the series 2-1, then MS Dhoni’s side will slip to 108 points and Zimbabwe will move from 47 to 48 points.

If fifth-ranked Sri Lanka wins both the matches against Ireland, then it will gain one point and move to 105. However, if the series ends in 1-all, then Sri Lanka will finish on 103 points whereas Ireland will jump from 42 points to 49 points.

(ICC)