I am not sure if England are a better side now than SA. I do think though we are a better side now than the one that played for us in SA this time last year. If that is now a better side than SA then so be it but we won't know till the sides meet on the park.
What is the timeframe you propose to use for your hypothetical subjective comparison? Do we judge England on their last match? OK, England are all-powerful as they owned Australia completely. One series? Still pretty good, despite a blip in Perth. Two series? Good, but with a lot of out-of-form batsmen (Cook, Pietersen, Collingwood, Strauss etc.).. and so it goes.
But I wouldn't disregard history altogether in my predictions either. Basically you are saying the new version of England without weaknesses is the one that won the recent Test in Melbourne (with Finn dropped).. that is far too short-termist. After all, the likes of Cook, Strauss and Pietersen were struggling with the bat only just before this series.. so if they lose the next Test with a batting collapse, they would become weaknesses again, right?
It's only short termist if I'm basing my predictions on the performance in that one match. I'm not - I'm basing it on a sum of the parts of the team. Cook, Strauss and Pietersen are good batsmen; they are not weaknesses. Even if they get rolled and lose a Test (and it'll happen, because they aren't a perfect side), they still won't be weak players.
Yeah, I misread it and missed that you were actually talking about rankings.
Yes, quite obviously. No wonder Australia chickened out of a Test series in April.Also how can we say it is without weakness when Bresnan who is part of that team in Melbourne couldn't get Bangladesh players out in a home test earlier in the year?
Are Bangladesh a better batting side that Australia then?
I don't think many people would dispute that Australia have batted worse in this series than probably even Bangladesh did earlier... and I'm sure you're loving it.Also how can we say it is without weakness when Bresnan who is part of that team in Melbourne couldn't get Bangladesh players out in a home test earlier in the year?
Are Bangladesh a better batting side that Australia then?
No, it is not. As I said, performance over a period of time evens out peaks and troughs of individual players' form etc. and takes into account performances against a variety of opposition. I think we ideologically differ on how we view the utility of these rankings as a means for predicting the future, so we should agree to disagree.
The point is though, dropping the leading wicket taker led to an improved performance. That's a pretty good indicator of our bench strength, as well as indicating the strength of our bowling attack overall. A strength that at the moment, no other side in the world has. You might argue that individual bowlers are better than their English counterparts, but the English attack is the strongest in world cricket at the moment.
I think you actually both agree. India being number 1 reflects that over the past 4 years (or however many years are taken into consideration), they have achieved the best results. What Marcuss is arguing (and I agree) is that a team's ranking performance does not reflect how good they are right now.
No, they certainly aren't weaknesses. But people were also questioning their form, technique and how they'd hold up prior to this series. Hell, there were people expecting Cook to get ditched midway through, and Pietersen had been dreadful for a good year and a half before this series.
No, retirements would certainly change things drastically. I'd make an exception for that.
India have had to face more top 5 teams and despite that have prevailed, unlike England.
Well how's it different from players getting injured, being dropped or falling woefully out of form or improving.
