SJS
Hall of Fame Member
Its only fitting that an Australian, Ricky Ponting, should have been declared the Player of the decade. After all he is the captain (for a large part of the decade) and the best batsman of the most dominating team by far of the last ten years. It is interesting to see Australia's statistics for this period. Here are their Test match stats against all Test playing countries.
It is easier to get a hold on those figures by converting them to percentages. Here. . .
Clearly, only India got the better of them during the decade while England and South Africa gave them some tough games. Assigning wins and losses to the teams that won those games and splitting the draws we get a head to head percentage as . . .
This gives a very clear picture of how the other teams stood up to Australia during the decade. Clearly India were their toughest opponents. All the other teams lost between 60 to 100 percent of their games against the Aussies. India lost less than a third and won more.
The biggest surprise for Australia, however, has to be the two reverses they suffered at the hands of England in the last two Ashes series away from home. This must count strongly against Ponting as a captain for England never, before the start of either series, looked anything like a side that could beat the Aussies particularly so in the 20005 series when Australia still had most of their old stars.
The disparity between India's performance and that of the other teams from South Asia must be a cause of great concern. It also shows the stupidity of these teams playing so many games amongst themselves and 'feeling good' about themselves. Pakistan cricket had its worst decade in their entire history and Sri Lanka's position in the ICC rankings is not a true indicator of their capability as a Test side at the highest level. These teams would do better to play more away from the sub-continent and get their cricketers to struggle but learn to adapt. That alone may see a revival of the cricketing fortunes of Sri Lanka and Pakistan-forget the minnows (BDS) for the time being.
The final comment, well known to all, is about Australia's decline even through this dominant decade. The difference between their performance in the first half of the decade as against the second shows the signs of a side in clear decline. Whether this will mean a clear drop from the top for Australia in the new decade will depend, of course, upon how well the other sides take the opportunity.
One suspects that the fight for the top spots in the current decade will be much tighter and for me, despite their uncertain performances, England appear to be the dark horse.
Maybe the fight for the rankings and the reduction of gaps between the top sides will compensate somewhat for what, at least at the start of the decade, appears to be a display of less than great quality of Test cricket.
Code:
[B]Against Played Won Drawn Lost[/B]
IND 19 6 6 7
ENG 25 15 4 6
SAF 18 13 1 4
NZL 13 9 4 0
WIN 18 15 2 1
SRL 7 6 1 0
PAK 7 7 0 0
BDS 4 4 0 0
ZIM 2 2 0 0
[B]Overall 113 77 18 18[/B]
Code:
[B]Against Win % Draw % Loss %[/B]
IND 32 32 37
ENG 60 16 24
SAF 72 6 22
NZL 69 31 0
WIN 83 11 6
SRL 86 14 0
PAK 100 0 0
BDS 100 0 0
ZIM 100 0 0
[B]Overall 68 16 16[/B]
Code:
[B]Against AUS OPP[/B]
IND 47 53
ENG 68 32
SAF 75 25
NZL 85 15
WIN 89 11
SRL 93 7
PAK 100 0
BDS 100 0
ZIM 100 0The biggest surprise for Australia, however, has to be the two reverses they suffered at the hands of England in the last two Ashes series away from home. This must count strongly against Ponting as a captain for England never, before the start of either series, looked anything like a side that could beat the Aussies particularly so in the 20005 series when Australia still had most of their old stars.
The disparity between India's performance and that of the other teams from South Asia must be a cause of great concern. It also shows the stupidity of these teams playing so many games amongst themselves and 'feeling good' about themselves. Pakistan cricket had its worst decade in their entire history and Sri Lanka's position in the ICC rankings is not a true indicator of their capability as a Test side at the highest level. These teams would do better to play more away from the sub-continent and get their cricketers to struggle but learn to adapt. That alone may see a revival of the cricketing fortunes of Sri Lanka and Pakistan-forget the minnows (BDS) for the time being.
The final comment, well known to all, is about Australia's decline even through this dominant decade. The difference between their performance in the first half of the decade as against the second shows the signs of a side in clear decline. Whether this will mean a clear drop from the top for Australia in the new decade will depend, of course, upon how well the other sides take the opportunity.
Code:
[B]Period Win % Draw % Loss %[/B]
1st half 72 13 15
2nd half 64 19 17Maybe the fight for the rankings and the reduction of gaps between the top sides will compensate somewhat for what, at least at the start of the decade, appears to be a display of less than great quality of Test cricket.
