India lose top spot in ICC Test rankings to Australia
Dubai: India lost the top spot in the ICC Test rankings to Australia on Friday, dropping to third after their stupendous 2016-17 record was eliminated from the annual update as per rules.
India yielded the top spot in Test rankings for the first time since October 2016 but continue to lead the ICC World Test Championship, a league comprising six series played by each of the top nine sides.
India dropped in the ladder largely because the record of 12 Tests victories and just one Test defeat in 2016-17 was removed in the latest chart, the ICC said in a statement.
Virat Kohli's men had won all five series during that period including against Australia and England. On the other hand, Australia had lost to South Africa as well as to India in the same period.
The latest update rates all the matches played since May 2019 at 100 per cent and those of the previous two years at 50 per cent.
Australia not only moved to the top of the Test rankings but also grabbed the no.1 spot in the T20I list for the first time while England continued to lead the men's ODI rankings after the annual update, which eliminates results from 2016-17.
Australia now have 116 points and are followed by New Zealand (115) and India (114).
With only two points separating them, this is the second closest the top three teams have been since the Test rankings were launched in 2003.
The closest for the top three teams was in January 2016, when India had led Australia and South Africa by a single point. South Africa have suffered the biggest rating fall of eight points, which sees them drop below Sri Lanka into sixth place.
They had won three series in the period culled, while lost eight of their nine Tests since February 2019, playing against Sri Lanka, India and England.
In the ODI team rankings, reigning world champions England (127) have increased their lead over India from six to eight points.
New Zealand remain in third place, three points behind India. The top ten rankings remain unchanged.
In contrast, the updated T20I team Rankings see plenty of changes. Australia (278) top the list for the first time since the T20I rankings were introduced in 2011.
Pakistan, who had overtaken New Zealand to reach top position in January 2018 and then spent 27 months there, are now fourth with 260 points.
England have moved into second position with 268 points while India are up one place to third, just two points behind.
Afghanistan are down from seventh to 10th while Bulgaria are the biggest gainers, up 12 places to 51st in the 84-country list of teams that played the requisite six matches in the past three years.
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Los Angeles county wildfires could be costliest in US history, early estimates say
Los Angeles, Jan 11: The wildfires that erupted this week across Los Angeles County are still raging, but already are projected to be among the costliest natural disasters in US history.
The devastating blazes have killed at least 11 people and incinerated more than 12,000 structures since Tuesday, laying waste to entire neighbourhoods once home to multimillion-dollar properties.
While it's still too early for an accurate tally of the financial toll, the losses so far likely make the wildfires the costliest ever in the US, according to various estimates.
A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather put the damage and economic losses so far between USD 135 billion and USD 150 billion. By comparison, AccuWeather estimated the damage and economic losses caused by Hurricane Helene, which tore across six southeastern states last fall, at USD 225 billion to USD 250 billion.
“This will be the costliest wildfire in California modern history and also very likely the costliest wildfire in US modern history, because of the fires occurring in the densely populated areas around Los Angeles with some of the highest-valued real estate in the country,” said Jonathan Porter, the private firm's chief meteorologist.
AccuWeather factors in a multitude of variables in its estimates, including damage to homes, businesses, infrastructure and vehicles, as well as immediate and long-term health care costs, lost wages and supply chain interruptions.
The insurance broker Aon PLC also said Friday that the LA County wildfires will likely end up being the costliest in US history, although it did not issue an estimate. Aon ranks a wildfire known as the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, in 2018 as the costliest in US history up to now at USD 12.5 billion, adjusted for inflation. The Camp Fire killed 85 people and destroyed about 11,000 homes.
The LA County wildfires, which were fuelled by hurricane-force Santa Ana winds and an extreme drought, remained largely uncontained Saturday. That means the final tally of losses from the blazes is likely to increase, perhaps substantially.
“To put this into perspective, the total damage and economic loss from this wildfire disaster could reach nearly 4 per cent of the annual GDP of the state of California,” AccuWeather's Porter said.
In a report Friday, Moody's also concluded that the wildfires would prove to be the costliest in US history, specifically because they have ripped through densely populated areas with higher-end properties.
While the state is no stranger to major wildfires, they have generally been concentrated in inland areas that are not densely populated. That's led to less destruction per acre, and in damage to less expensive homes, Moody's noted.
That's far from the case this time, with one of the largest conflagrations destroying thousands of properties across the Pacific Palisades and Malibu, home to many Hollywood stars and executives with multimillion-dollar properties. Already, numerous celebrities have lost homes to the fires.
“The scale and intensity of the blazes, combined with their geographic footprint, suggest a staggering price tag, both in terms of the human cost and the economic toll,” Moody's analysts wrote. The report did not include a preliminary cost estimate of the wildfire damage.
It could be several months before a concrete tally of the financial losses from the wildfires will be possible.
“We're in the very early stages of this disaster,” Porter said.
