India has set to make a positive start in their UK tour in 2018 as they kick-off the tour with the two-match T20I series against the hosts Ireland before their giant tour in England. India has also a good chance to step up on the T20I rankings with their upcoming matches.
Currently, in the T20I rankings, India is in the third position with 123 rating points. Pakistan and Australia are on the top two positions of the ICC T20I rankings with 131 and 126 rating points respectively.
While India’s T20I rankings’ rating points will not improve by winning just the two T20Is against the hosts Ireland, they also need to win all the next three T20Is against the host England to surpass Australia’s current rating points (126 rating points) as India will finish with the 127 rating points.
However, India will have to wait for the other games to step up in their T20I rankings as the hosts England will play one-off T20I against Australia before their three-match home T20I series against India and Australia will join in the T20I tri-series in Zimbabwe (teams are Zimbabwe, Australia and Pakistan) after completing their English tour by playing only T20I.
Meanwhile, the no.17 or bottom placed T20I ranked team Ireland is also looking to strengthen their position in the ranking table. Having 36 rating points in the T20I rankings at present, Ireland will move up to the no.15 rank if they will manage to beat India twice in the two-match T20I series as they will earn 11 more rating points that will sum up their rating points to 47. In that case, Ireland will surpass Oman (39 rating points) and Hong Kong (42 rating points) who are currently at the no.16 and 15 positions respectively in the T20I rankings.
Even if Ireland manages to win at least one T20I against India, they will move to the no.16 T20I ranking with 41 rating points.
If Ireland loses both their T20I games against India, the bottom-placed T20I ranked team will lose only one rating point.
The two-match T20I bilateral series between the hosts Ireland and the visitors India have been scheduled on June 27 and 29 at Dublin. Later, India will play three-match T20I series, three-match ODI series and five-match Test series during their English tour, starting from July 3. India is hopeful to do well on the UK tour.
