The rating method, developed by David Kendix, an English actuary and cricket statistician, is worked out by dividing the number of points a team scored in test matches by the total number of matches played, with the answer given to the nearest whole number. At noted in a release from the ICC today, series results from the 2014-15 season have been removed for this ranking, and those from the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons have been weighed at 50 percent.

India ranked first with a rating of 125, cementing its position at the top of the ranking and increasing its lead from last year over the second-ranked team, South Africa, from four to 13 points.

Australia placed third in the rankings with a rating of 106, regaining the position in the charts from New Zealand, which has a rating of 102 this year and which had overtaken Australia for the third place spot in last year’s ranking. Ranked fifth with rating of 98, just four points ahead of Sri Lanka, is England.

Pakistan ranked seventh with a score of 86, Bangladesh ranked eighth with a score of 75, the West Indies ranked ninth—the country's first time in this spot—with a score of 67, and Zimbabwe ranked tenth with a score of 2. According to the ICC, the rankings table will begin to include Afghanistan and Ireland once they play their first test matches—Ireland against Pakistan in May and Afghanistan against India in June—following the two countries’ recently gained full membership status.