The Netherlands' victory over South Africa and Afghanistan's triumph over England at the ICC Cricket World Cup were unexpected upsets.
The Elo ratings method, developed by professor Arpad Elo for games like chess, can be used to rank teams in two-team sports.
Gaurav Sood and Derek Willis constructed an algorithmic approach to calculate monthly Elo ratings for each ICC cricket playing nation/team.
The Elo ratings of teams playing in the World Cup indicate their prior and recent performances and strengths.
A team with a lower Elo rating defeating one with a higher rating could be considered an upset, and if the Elo difference is significant, it would be a major upset.
The Netherlands' defeat of South Africa in the World Cup was a major upset, despite a 457-point difference in their Elo ratings.
This was the second biggest upset in World Cup history, with the biggest upset being Bangladesh's defeat of Pakistan in 1999.
Afghanistan's defeat of England was the 13th biggest upset, with a 255-point difference in their Elo ratings.
New Zealand's loss to Kenya was also considered a big upset, but it was due to New Zealand forfeiting the game for security concerns.
Having the highest Elo ratings at the start of the World Cup does not guarantee a team's success, as only West Indies in 1979 and Australia in 2003 and 2015 have won as favorites.
India in 1983 and Pakistan in 1992 were unfancied teams that went on to win the World Cup.
Table 3 lists the Elo ratings of all the teams currently playing in the 2023 World Cup.
Tt provides an update on the current inflation situation in India. It discusses the easing of inflation faced by consumers in September and the expectations for future inflation rates. It also highlights the factors contributing to inflation, such as food prices and global oil and gas prices.
Inflation faced by consumers eased to 5% in September after a sharp rally in prices.
This brings relief as it falls within the 2% to 6% tolerance range of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The RBI's upgraded estimate of average inflation between July and September is 6.4%.
The preferred inflation rate remains 4% and the RBI will remain focused on achieving that.
The RBI's target of 4% inflation appears distant as this quarter is expected to average 5.6% inflation.
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank raised their estimates of inflation to 5.5% and 5.9% respectively.
September's 5% inflation is unlikely to sustain or cool further.
Food inflation has eased to 6.6% in September, but this is mainly due to crashing vegetable prices.
Inflation has accelerated for pulses, fruits, eggs, and sugar.
Cereals and spices inflation remains high at 11% and 23.1% respectively.
Rural inflation is higher than urban inflation.
Weak rural demand and food price pressures are a concern for the economy.
Pulses prices spiked 17.7% and onions rose 55% in September.
Wholesale price rise has stayed in deflationary mode for the sixth month, but this streak may be ending soon.
Global oil and gas prices have risen at an eight-month high pace of 15.6% in September.
Producers have been raising prices due to higher global oil and gas prices.
Global prices for urea, which India imports, are up 20% since March.
These factors will start to feed into retail prices soon, so it is not time to celebrate cooling inflation yet.
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