Who is the worse number 1 side to rise to the top of the rankings during last year?

[Ruckus]

While I don't think form is an illusion arising from the quality of the bowling attack at all, I do think poor bowling can improve form by increasing confidence and, in turn, improving technical aspects of a batsmen's game like footwork etc. (and vice versa for quality bowling). Will be interested to see how Ponting, especially, goes against higher quality bowling over a lengthy series, and if he can maintain the good technical features of his game he has shown against India. It's a massive cliche, but it's going to come down to how much he continues to back himself even if he goes early a few times in succession. As soon as doubt starts creeping into his mind, I'm sure the bad old habits will follow. He has to use the momentum and success he has found from the India series to stay confident.

 

[Agent Nationaux]

So Ponting and Hussey perform in one or two matches against a crap bowling attack and suddenly Australia have a great middle order that can beat Pakistan in UAE. Yeah right. I wouldn't be surprised if the Aus batting collapsed against our bowlers in their own back yard.

 

[Spark]

So Ponting and Hussey perform in one or two matches against a crap bowling attack and suddenly Australia have a great middle order that can beat Pakistan in UAE. Yeah right. I wouldn't be surprised if the Aus batting collapsed against our bowlers in their own back yard.

Strawman overload.

 

[Jarquis]

I said I'd be reasonably confident we could win in India. We've already won in SL recently, but I think Pakistan would probably have the edge in the UAE (but the fact we have a middle order worthy of its name means it would at least be a contest)

So did we before the last series.

 

[Spark]

Fair point.

 

[Cevno]

Still not sure about Ponting's form fully and how much he has actually recovered from his slump. He was always going to score runs against India and get back some form, the way we are going. Predicted it long ahead.

Clarke certainly is batting very well and going through a purple patch though.

 

[silentstriker]

So did we before the last series.

INdia had one before the ENgland series. .

 

[smash84]

 

[Spikey]

To be fair, we've just moved the issue to number 3.

I said the other day that Smith's main batting talent is a pretty good completion rate. We were clearly just batting him in the wrong position

 

[Uppercut]

While I don't think form is an illusion arising from the quality of the bowling attack at all, I do think poor bowling can improve form by increasing confidence and, in turn, improving technical aspects of a batsmen's game like footwork etc. (and vice versa for quality bowling). Will be interested to see how Ponting, especially, goes against higher quality bowling over a lengthy series, and if he can maintain the good technical features of his game he has shown against India. It's a massive cliche, but it's going to come down to how much he continues to back himself even if he goes early a few times in succession. As soon as doubt starts creeping into his mind, I'm sure the bad old habits will follow. He has to use the momentum and success he has found from the India series to stay confident.

Players do often appear to be bowled into form by bad bowling and bowled out of form by the good stuff.

It's multi-faceted though. Batsmen tend to look out of nick when they arrive at the crease but in excellent touch once they're set. Clarke looked decidedly iffy for the first half-hour or so of his triple century- if India had been good enough to take advantage, we might well have come away from that innings thinking "jeez, he's in seriously bad touch". Likewise, the Ponting we saw last year was almost invariably new to the crease and this year he's done most of his batting while well set, so of course his technique is going to be much more solid this time round, even controlling for the quality of bowling.

 

[Spark]

Not nearly as simple as that though. Proof: Shaun Marsh. And Ponting during the SL series.

That Hussey, who traditionally has serious issues with high quality pace bowling, could do so well in the Ashes is pretty strong evidence that there is a significant amount of a batsman's form which is independent of the bowling quality.

 

[Furball]

Not nearly as simple as that though. Proof: Shaun Marsh. And Ponting during the SL series.

That Hussey, who traditionally has serious issues with high quality pace bowling, could do so well in the Ashes is pretty strong evidence that there is a significant amount of a batsman's form which is independent of the bowling quality.

I believe that factor is called "luck."

 

[Ruckus]

Na, I agree with Spark. Maybe there are different definitions of 'form' going around though, so i'll try to clarify what I think the true meaning of it is. Form to me has nothing to do with whether a batsman is scoring runs or not per se...it is basically all to do with technique and how well the player is maintaining it even in challenging conditions. You can have batsmen that are in good form who fail to score runs because of unplayable deliveries etc. or, alternatively, you can have batsmen in poor form who score a lot of runs because of other factors like luck etc. How many times have we seen a batsman who looks really terrible score a streaky 50 or even 100, with loads of dropped catches etc. thrown in?

That being said, good form is conducive to scoring runs, more than not scoring them, because if a player is managing the technical aspects of their game well, then the chances are the runs will come.

If you take the definition of form as something like that, then of course pre-match factors like how well a player has trained in the nets and how mentally prepared they are etc. will have an impact on their form even before the first ball is bowled.

 

[Agent Nationaux]

The Australian top order is carrying a lot of passengers. Watson and Clarke are the only good batsmen they have.

 

[Cabinet96]

SA actually have to start winning series before they get talked up as the number 1 imo. How can you seriously say they are better than everyone else when they failed to win their last series against Australia, India, England and Pakistan. 3 of those series were at home as well. Especially as England thrashed India and Australia the last time they played them. As Howe_Zat said if South Africa had had the year we had people would be all over them. The way you play your cricket shouldn't be a factor in how good you are imo.

As far as I see it all of the top sides have weaknesses. Australia don't have a great batting line up and much of it won't be around much longer. South Africa still don't seem to have a great spinner and always look prone to collapses, their number 6 onwards, is the weakest of the best teams imo. Pakistan really do look a good unit, but much of their new young batsmen are pretty untested in foreign conditions and it would be interesting to see how they cope in South Africa and Australia. England's problems are pretty clear from the Pakistan series, however, the way the bowlers performed makes me believe they have a better bowling line up than SA and Australia.

India are going to go through a developing stage in the next few years imo and won't be challenging the other 4 sides to be the best in the world. Will still be very tough opposition in India though.

As far as I see it all the top 4 sides are very closely matched, however, given the evidence over the last couple of years I reckon England, and Pakistan for that matter, are probably better than Australia and South Africa, no matter what the rankings will say after South Africa's tour of New Zealand. Not quite sure how South Africa have gained so many points considering they have only won 2 series, IIRC, since the beginning of 2009.

 

[Agent Nationaux]

Cabinet96

No Homo

 

[Contra]

lol.. some people just don't get how rankings work do they?

SA not winning many series is offset by them not losing a series for close to 3 years. SA didn't get beat by Pakistan either. Love how people only think from a "they didn't win much" perspective, when not losing much is equally valuable when it comes to rankings.

 

[Cabinet96]

lol.. some people just don't get how rankings work do they?

SA not winning many series is offset by them not losing a series for close to 3 years. SA didn't get beat by Pakistan either. Love how people only think from a "they didn't win much" perspective, when not losing much is equally valuable when it comes to rankings.

But surely for a team many consider are the best in the world, they should beat most teams that come over to their country and not just not lose to them?

In hindsight it's probably fair as when they lost to Australia in 2009 Australia were still the number 1 side and when they failed to beat India they were still the number 1 side (they probably would have gained points for drawing with India at home?). I think the fact that both those teams went down the rankings fairly quickly after that can make people forget, at least it did that to me, that when they played them they were ranked much higher than they are now.

It makes sense to be fair.

 

[Contra]

But surely for a team many consider are the best in the world, they should beat most teams that come over to their country and not just not lose to them?

In hindsight it's probably fair as when they lost to Australia in 2009 Australia were still the number 1 side and when they failed to beat India they were still the number 1 side (they probably would have gained points for drawing with India at home?). I think the fact that both those teams went down the rankings fairly quickly after that can make people forget, at least it did that to me, that when they played them they were ranked much higher than they are now.

It makes sense to be fair.

Best team in the world =/= being the #1 team

Rankings reflect consistency, as long as your more consistent then the rest (even by the tiniest of margin) you'll be ranked higher, simple really. India's entire #1 was based on pretty much not losing, off the top of my head they lost a grand total of 3 games starting from the Aus series in 08 till just before the series against England started. How many points is 3 losses gonna cost? And whatever points we lost were recovered back by getting even in all 3 instances that we lost (SA 1-1, SL 1-1, SA again 1-1). Outside of that we drew/won games, most of our wins were usually 1-0's or 2-0's, so we weren't exactly obliterating other teams (although I partly blame that on some of our flat ass pitches we got in the SC). But we made sure we didn't lose. South Africa are in a similar situation (although we won more series then them, but that's probably because we played more test series then them in that period). SA haven't lost since early 09. Sure they haven't won much, but they haven't lost much either. So there ratings are just meandering within that 110-120 range. There's 2 ways they'll go up, either they starting winning more, or they wait till the teams ahead of them start losing more.

I still have England as the "best" team in terms of being really balanced and having pretty much all there bases covered (although they need to learn to play spin, and quick). But the best teams doesn't necessarily mean being #1.

Same goes for ODI's, Australia entered the WC as #1 ranked (and by some margin too). But who can honestly say they were the "best" team in the competition? Or even going into the competition? I sure didn't consider them the best team, and I don't consider them the best ODI team right now either. But they consistently won match after match, even if their team composition etc wasn't the greatest.

 

[TumTum]

Best team in the world =/= being the #1 team

Rankings reflect consistency, as long as your more consistent then the rest (even by the tiniest of margin) you'll be ranked higher, simple really. India's entire #1 was based on pretty much not losing, off the top of my head they lost a grand total of 3 games starting from the Aus series in 08 till just before the series against England started. How many points is 3 losses gonna cost? And whatever points we lost were recovered back by getting even in all 3 instances that we lost (SA 1-1, SL 1-1, SA again 1-1). Outside of that we drew/won games, most of our wins were usually 1-0's or 2-0's, so we weren't exactly obliterating other teams (although I partly blame that on some of our flat ass pitches we got in the SC). But we made sure we didn't lose. South Africa are in a similar situation (although we won more series then them, but that's probably because we played more test series then them in that period). SA haven't lost since early 09. Sure they haven't won much, but they haven't lost much either. So there ratings are just meandering within that 110-120 range. There's 2 ways they'll go up, either they starting winning more, or they wait till the teams ahead of them start losing more.

I still have England as the "best" team in terms of being really balanced and having pretty much all there bases covered (although they need to learn to play spin, and quick). But the best teams doesn't necessarily mean being #1.

Same goes for ODI's, Australia entered the WC as #1 ranked (and by some margin too). But who can honestly say they were the "best" team in the competition? Or even going into the competition? I sure didn't consider them the best team, and I don't consider them the best ODI team right now either. But they consistently won match after match, even if their team composition etc wasn't the greatest.

I don't buy that.

Firstly, Best team on paper =/= Best team

And, Best team on rankings ~= Best team

Neither of them accurately say who's the best, but rankings work on facts and statistics, rather than opinions of team strength which are just imaginary..