Updated Test Rankings.
South Africa surging after the big wins in India.
Australia was expected to beat England by 132 runs and did slightly better. Noting injuries England are still closer than the ratings would indicate.

The Ashes will only matter, and therefore make money, while it remains the oldest and biggest of Test's many series. Take away that context and it is an anachronism. That's a weird choice for an Australian cricket administrator to make

Ratings following the last three tests. Zimbabwe's recent run of matches means they have the highest games played since 2005, but also, their lowest ever rating.
Very little change otherwise as they matched their expected margins in the previous test: ENG by 22 (exp: 8), AUS by 176 (exp: 166)

Updating Test ratings following the Australia and England games. Australia still the leading team by a reasonable margin. South Africa and India with strong form indicating potential to close the gap.

End of year Test Ratings before we start again. Australia on top.
Teams remain very stable. NZ dropping back over the last few years is the only significant change of note, and even then it puts them back where they were in 2019.

And while the nominal number of matches between top 8 and top 12 teams is much higher in the format the ICC have used, because Pakistan and Sri Lanka missed out, it ended up being very similar (or exactly the same if SL beat SCO and PAK beat BAN):
16 vs 12 between top 8 teams
23 vs 26 for 8 vs 12

The difference is the ICC went with the "Super 8" to make sure the big teams (actually just India) played more games, and to maximise the biggest match-ups, but it came at a cost to dead rubbers.
The breakdown: 6 completely dead vs none. 17 teams playing a game of no consequence vs just 2.

My preferred format would run straight into knockouts, offsetting the risk of an early exit by providing a second-third playoff, and incentivising first place through a clear run to the quarter finals. Nicely, for once, we can see what this would look like:

Group D.
Netherlands against Bangladesh the key game as that potentially brings them (and Sri Lanka) back into it. Netherlands not being favoured in either game means the prediction strongly favours BAN 2nd and SRI 3rd.

Group C.
NZ very unlikely to get through after that first game. West Indies matches against NZ and AFG will decide whether that changes. They are strongly favoured against Afghanistan on the ratings, but maybe shouldn't be on demonstrated performance.

Group B.
Scotland and England basically 50/50 with the ENG-NAM and AUS-SCO the most critical.

Group A.
Ireland games key with Pakistan still slightly favoured because USA is not favoured to beat Ireland and Pakistan is. Ireland still an outside chance if they win both themselves.

From an otherwise interesting article on older players. Leaving aside the inset that says BPM is a "replacement level", not "average" measurement, you'd think it would trigger that something was wrong with this when in some years *all groups* were below average.
www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/a...

West Indies win over Australia was, incidentally, the 3rd biggest upset per the rankings, behind Bangladesh's win over NZ in 21/22 and England over WI in 89/90
A lot of the other upsets indicate a convergence, rather than a true upset (or weakened sides) but only in retrospect.

Been a while since I updated the ratings, which have tightened at the top with Australia and India declining relative to England.
India still favoured by 69 runs.
Sri Lanka by 181 runs over Afghanistan.