Saturday, March 3, 2018

Really - which one's the No.1 Test team?

India came bask from a reasonably triumphant SA tour - we lost the Test series 1-2 (we won the last one), but won the ODI series 5-1 and the T20 series 2-1. Yes, The coach and captain have declared their intention very clearly , of winning the next Overseas Test series and have begun some level of planning and preparation. That's India, the No. 1 Test team. SA are No. 2 and Aus No. 3 in these rankings.
But are these rankings a reflection of reality? One look at the first Aus versus SA test (in SA right now) says otherwise. At the end of Day 3, Aus have a 400+ lead in the third innings of the match (having secured a 189 run lead in their first innings). SA's batting is looking worse than it did against India, so, chances of them winning are slim. This is the same SA team that made life difficult for India in SA, but looks worse off against Australia. The Aussies, mind you, were the only visiting team that gave India a scare in the Test series in India last year.
So, based on this, Aus is better than India (the recent Ashes performances have bolstered that) and India might just be better than SA. Hopefully, we will see a change in Test rankings soon.


P.S: I completely missed writing about the SL vs Bangladesh Test series. SL beat Bangladesh in Bangladesh - Rangana Herath , as usual , played a key role.

No comments:

Post a Comment