social
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
If they dont play, India CANNOT retain the no. 1 ranking unless others lose or draw (you do understand that teams get awarded ranking points for series victories, dont you?)@spark and Teja,
I am aware of the rich tradition and importance behind the Ashes and I respect it as a contest hugely because it is perhaps the only 5 test series now.
But it makes no sense when someone posts rubbish like 'Let's not play any test cricket but stay at home and prepare for Ashes', it's not as if Aus will be playing a tight schedule till the Ashes. Actually they have only the 2 Pak tests in Eng in about 10 months preceding the Ashes. So that logic from social made no sense whatsoever.
@social,
Not enough justification mate there. India can afford to play it safe and retain it's no.1 rank, without playing anything, till the next FTP scheduled series, which is the series in SA. So it makes no sense from a conservative angle to schedule any series and probably jeopardise our rankings before that. So kudos to BCCI for taking this risk, and setting a welcome precedence for other nations. Test cricket has never got
more attention than now since perhaps the late 80s (before one day cricket took over), thanks to us becoming no.1, so Bcci might just want to utilise that. Nothing wrong in that as it is a win win situation for all.
As for the prominence of test cricket, maybe it's risen in India but everywhere else it's situation normal