Maximas
Cricketer Of The Year
http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/cri...ext-side-win-test-series-against-top-4-a.html
Seeing this 2010 thread pop up in the NZ/WI tour thread got me thinking. Basically, we probably have two teams who are pretty comfortably the two best teams going around, Australia by virtue of their recent outstanding form, and South Africa because of their dominance around the world in the last 4-5 years. However, once we look past those two teams it becomes harder to separate the next few teams. Rankings give a decent indicator of the quality of teams, but if every team was to square off home and away tomorrow (in tests) what do you think the rankings would look like if those tests were the only basis point, basically - what is your test rankings table right now. For me...
3. England slot in reasonably comfortably at third, while their winter was obviously awful, they were very solid leading up to it and I don't think they'll have too much trouble at home this summer, but with all the changes and the like you never know.
4-7. This is where it starts to get very tricky, because I find it very difficult to separate India, SL, NZ and Pakistan. I'd say the recent SL-Pak series showed those two teams to be very even, but with the 2012 victory to SL at home I'd say they have the slight edge. India thumped NZ at home, but then NZ returned the favour (although not as emphatically), so it's not easy to separate those two, and then India haven't played SL or Pakistan in tests for a while, so it's tricky to separate them. SL managed to take a test of South Africa on their tour, while India and NZ and Pakistan failed to, but on the other hand the all three SC teams got thumped in Australia while NZ won at Hobart to level their series there. If NZ continue to be inept in the SC it's hard to make a case for them being above the others, (you can point to their 1-1 series in SL but they also failed to beat Bangladesh while SL didn't) then of course Pakistan are so damn sporadic, able to beat South Africa at home one test and lose to Zimbabwe the next, I really can't work out an order tbh.
8. West Indies are probably a tier below those four, while they had a good run for a bit there they played dismally in India as well as in NZ, while there is some hope with home conditions and better selection they could be much more competitive but for now I think we can place them at 8.
9-10. It's pretty hard to separate Bangladesh and Zim as well, their last series against each other in Zim resulted in an undercooked Bangladesh side getting thumped, then a well adjusted Bangladesh side beating Zim, but Zim managed to beat Pakistan while Bangladesh haven't managed to beat a major test nation at home or away recently.
While there's no test matches on now I thought it might be interesting to see what people thought about how the teams stack up next to each other.
Seeing this 2010 thread pop up in the NZ/WI tour thread got me thinking. Basically, we probably have two teams who are pretty comfortably the two best teams going around, Australia by virtue of their recent outstanding form, and South Africa because of their dominance around the world in the last 4-5 years. However, once we look past those two teams it becomes harder to separate the next few teams. Rankings give a decent indicator of the quality of teams, but if every team was to square off home and away tomorrow (in tests) what do you think the rankings would look like if those tests were the only basis point, basically - what is your test rankings table right now. For me...
3. England slot in reasonably comfortably at third, while their winter was obviously awful, they were very solid leading up to it and I don't think they'll have too much trouble at home this summer, but with all the changes and the like you never know.
4-7. This is where it starts to get very tricky, because I find it very difficult to separate India, SL, NZ and Pakistan. I'd say the recent SL-Pak series showed those two teams to be very even, but with the 2012 victory to SL at home I'd say they have the slight edge. India thumped NZ at home, but then NZ returned the favour (although not as emphatically), so it's not easy to separate those two, and then India haven't played SL or Pakistan in tests for a while, so it's tricky to separate them. SL managed to take a test of South Africa on their tour, while India and NZ and Pakistan failed to, but on the other hand the all three SC teams got thumped in Australia while NZ won at Hobart to level their series there. If NZ continue to be inept in the SC it's hard to make a case for them being above the others, (you can point to their 1-1 series in SL but they also failed to beat Bangladesh while SL didn't) then of course Pakistan are so damn sporadic, able to beat South Africa at home one test and lose to Zimbabwe the next, I really can't work out an order tbh.
8. West Indies are probably a tier below those four, while they had a good run for a bit there they played dismally in India as well as in NZ, while there is some hope with home conditions and better selection they could be much more competitive but for now I think we can place them at 8.
9-10. It's pretty hard to separate Bangladesh and Zim as well, their last series against each other in Zim resulted in an undercooked Bangladesh side getting thumped, then a well adjusted Bangladesh side beating Zim, but Zim managed to beat Pakistan while Bangladesh haven't managed to beat a major test nation at home or away recently.
While there's no test matches on now I thought it might be interesting to see what people thought about how the teams stack up next to each other.
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