SA remains on the top of ICC table, bunch of surprises ahead

Georgetown, Guyana, Mar 29 (UNI) South Africa confirmed its supremacy at the top of the LG ICC ranking to be released on Sunday following their nail biting one-wicket victory over former champions Sr Lanka, thus collecting a prize money of 175,000 dollar.

Australia, however despite winning big against host West Indies at Antigua, has to content with the second spot.

''It is nice to be at the top and in fact I came to know about the prize money from the newspapers only. That is a good money and that is always welcome,'' said a confident South African captain Graeme Smith.

Australia will collect 75,000 dollar for coming at the second spot.

Smith's side assumed the first place from Australia last month, just ahead of the World Cup following an outstanding run of results over the past year, which saw the team win 15 of its 21 matches.

Interestingly, it is the first time a team has overtaken Australia in the LG ICC ODI Championship table since its inception in October 2002.

Both the teams were locked at the top of the table with 126 points, despite the Aussies' recent victory over Smith's side in St Kitts on Saturday, but the Proteas just came out in front, thanks to the three decimal points.

However, by the cut off date, both South Africa and Australia will end up on 127 points. But upon further calculations, it became clear that the Proteas, who are considered as one of the favourites for this year's cup, will eventually finsh ahead of Ponting's side by just 0.1199 of a point, the ICC source confirmed.

Meanwhile, further down the ladder, there is plenty of congestion as just 11 points seperates the third place holder from the eighth.

Due to its early exit from the event, India could move further down the table to the eighth place from its present position of sixth, provided the Windies and English register good results in the coming weeks.

Currently, England lies just one point behind Rahul Dravid's team with the West Indies just two points further back. So one can expect plenty of movement as the Super Eight stage of the mega event hots up in a few days.

UNI