Rain stops play in India v Australia one-dayer

Rain stopped play when India were nine for one wicket after 2.4 overs in the first one-day international against Australia here on Saturday.
Heavy rains right at the start of the India innings forced umpires Suresh Shastri and Steve Bucknor to take the players off the field in the day-night game.
Gautam Gambhir was on four while Irfan Pathan was yet to open his account when play was halted.
Australia, electing to bat, made 307 for seven in 50 overs in what is the first of the seven-match series.

Shastri accepts NCA chairman post

Ravi Shastri, the former Indian allrounder, has accepted the offer to take over as chairman of the National Cricket Academy (NCA), the Board of Control for Cricket in India confirmed. Shastri, who had earlier agreed in principle to take up the assignment, informed the board of his decision after taking his media commitments into consideration.
"Ravi Shastri has accepted the offer to take over as chairman," Niranjan Shah, the BCCI secretary, told Cricinfo. "How he manages his media commitments and time is up to him. His primary role is to set up a structure for the functioning of the NCA and he will have a team under him to execute the process."
Shastri takes over from Ajay Shirke, who was made acting chairman of the Bangalore-based academy after Kapil Dev was sacked from the post for signing up with the Indian Cricket League. Kapil had refused to step down as chairman of the ICL's executive board even after the BCCI refused permission for the league.
Shastri took over as the Indian team manager for the tour of Bangladesh earlier this year. However, given his commentary commitments with television channel ESPN-Star Sports, he had declined the offer for an extension

LG ICC ODI Championship rules

A rating for each team is obtained by dividing total points by matches played, with the answer given to the nearest whole number.
If ratings are equal, the ratings calculation is refined to three decimal places to determine the higher ranked team.
The matches column for each team includes all ODIs played since August 2005 but earlier matches have a lower 'weighting' so that the rankings more fully reflect recent form.
The number of points earned by a team for any ODI match depends on two factors: the result (won, tied or lost) and the rating of the opponent against whom the result was achieved. The higher an opponent's rating, the more points are earned for beating them. Points are ‘weighted’ in the same way as matches.
A team that over the period being rated wins as often as it loses while playing an average mix of strong and weak opponents will have a rating of close to 100.
Matches abandoned with no result are always ignored. Period covered:
The ratings are based on up to three years of results.
The table currently reflects all ODIs played since August 2005.
All ODIs played until the start of August 2007 will be added on to this table.
Every August, the first year of results will be dropped from the table, so it will then cover the most recent two years of results. Thus once a year, the rankings will change overnight without any new ODIs being played. Weighting of results:
All matches included within the rankings will always fall into one of three time periods. Weightings are applied to these three groups of matches so that the rankings more fully reflect recent form. These weightings are:
Period One covers the first year of matches (weighting: one-third)
Period Two covers the second year of matches (weighting: two-thirds)
Period Three covers the remaining more recent matches (weighting: one)
The number of matches played and the number of points earned in each period is multiplied by the weighting factor. For example, when the table was first launched, Sri Lanka had played 33 ODIs in Period One, with a weighting of one third, this counted as 11 matches towards its rating. Similarly, 21 ODIs played in Period Two counted as 14. so the number of matches shown for Sri Lanka in the table was 11 plus 14 plus the 10 they had played at that time in Period Three - a total of 35. A small technical adjustment ensures that, for all teams, the total number of matches and rating points is always a whole number. Applying the ratings formula:
After each match, the two teams each score a certain number of points. These points are then added to their existing total and used to generate their updated ratings. The number of points a team scores is based on two factors:
the result of the match and
the gap between the ratings of the two teams going into the match.
There are two different formulae. One applies if the gap between the two teams' ratings is less than 40 points, the other if the gap is 40 points or more. The points you score from a particular ODI are as follows: Case 1 - gap between the two teams' ratings is less than 40 points:
if you win, you score 50 points more than your opponent's rating
if you lose, you score 50 points less than your opponent's rating
if you tie, you score your opponent's rating Case 2 - gap between the two teams' ratings is 40 points or more:
if the stronger team wins, it scores 10 points more than its own rating while the weaker team scores 10 points less than its own rating
if the weaker team wins, it scores 90 points more than its own rating while the stronger team scores 90 points less than its own rating
if the match is tied, the stronger team scores 40 points less than its own rating and the weaker team scores 40 points more than its own rating.
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