Chance for England to displace Australia

If England can repeat last season's 100 per cent home record in Test cricket, it will finish the summer at the top of the LG ICC Test Championship.

Clean sweeps against Bangladesh and Australia will see England topple Australia and claim the LG ICC Test Championship mace for the first time.

With the official rankings set to undergo their annual update on August 1, the mathematics is complex but if England beats Bangladesh 2-0 and then Australia 5-0 it will definitely go top of the official table.

Even if the margin of victory against Bangladesh is only 1-0, a 5-0 win over Australia will be just good enough for the LG ICC Test Championship mace to change hands at the end of the Ashes.

If England beats Bangladesh 2-0 and Australia 4-0, it will draw level with Australia on points but will remain second when the ratings are recalculated to three decimal places.

England, currently second in the official table, must beat Bangladesh 2-0 in the two-Test series starting on Thursday at Lord's to improve its rating by one point, increasing the lead it holds over third-placed India to four points.

A drawn series would see this advantage sliced to only one point.

Bangladesh will improve its rating by one point if it can avoid defeat in one of the matches against England while a drawn series would boost its rating from six to nine points.

Going into the Bangladesh series, Steve Harmison, tenth in the bowling rankings, is the only England player in the top ten of the LG ICC Test Player Rankings. Andrew Strauss (11th) and Marcus Trescothick (16th), in the batting, and Matthew Hoggard (13th) and Andrew Flintoff (14th), in the bowling, are best-placed to join Harmison in this elite group.

The LG ICC Test Championship table as on 24 May 2005: