best team in world cricket right now

[S.Kennedy]

If England are indeed so poor, how **** does that make Oz then?

England win the Ashes in a fairly one sided series: England on tour beat a Steyn-less Proteas: Australia home are beaten by a Steyn-less Proteas!!

 

[honestbharani]

If England are indeed so poor, how **** does that make Oz then?

England win the Ashes in a fairly one sided series: England on tour beat a Steyn-less Proteas: Australia home are beaten by a Steyn-less Proteas!!

The real roughie for Australia was that they got beat by a 10 man 3 bowler team.

 

[Zinzan]

If England are indeed so poor, how **** does that make Oz then?

England win the Ashes in a fairly one sided series: England on tour beat a Steyn-less Proteas: Australia home are beaten by a Steyn-less Proteas!!

Steyn and Philander in England's case tbf, big difference missing your premier fast bowler vs. both your two premier bowlers.

That said, I'd only have Australia very marginally ahead of England as of this moment, it's not a big gap.

 

[S.Kennedy]

Steyn and Philander in England's case tbf, big difference missing your premier fast bowler vs. both your two premier bowlers.

That said, I'd only have Australia very marginally ahead of England as of this moment, it's not a big gap.

I'll give you the fact that S.A (and India) might have the edge over England, but there is no way I can have Australia above England. If we are accepting that England are poorer than S.A - because of the Steyn factor, etc. - then that literally knocks Oz outside of all contention here. We should not even be discussing Australia as they were beaten with a home advantage!!

 

[centurymaker]

Broad is clearly a better bowler nowadays than Anderson. Really impressed with his bowling. Troubles batsmen even on flatest of pitches with seam and/or swing.

 

[centurymaker]

England > Australia, no argument there, although Australia are favourites to win the next Ashes series at home.

 

[Zinzan]

England > Australia, no argument there, although Australia are favourites to win the next Ashes series at home.

I'm not convinced, both sides would likely win vs. one another at home, both sides seems to play well in SA & Australia the more impressive of the two sides touring NZ. Outside of that they're pretty even for mine.

 

[Spark]

Broad is clearly a better bowler nowadays than Anderson. Really impressed with his bowling. Troubles batsmen even on flatest of pitches with seam and/or swing.

I'm not really across what he did the summer, but I think the consensus was that he was likely the best Test bowler in the world at the start of the year.

 

[GIMH]

This is funny

Well, happened to me once too. Its gonna feel pretty dumb to GIMH once it dawns on him.

Jesus. Had to go back and read my post again and realised what I'd done.

****s sake.

 

[honestbharani]

If it helps, I carried on for way more posts than you did.


Although, I realized it much faster too..

 

[Chrish]

Fair to say Australia is no where near the picture?

 

[Zinzan]

Fair to say Australia is no where near the picture?

I think that's fair, they're up there with England around 4th place though, but yeah a long way off India and South Africa.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I think that's fair, they're up there with England around 4th place though, but yeah a long way off India and South Africa.

Changed your thoughts on Pakistan?

 

[Zinzan]

Changed your thoughts on Pakistan?

Not unless you believe that one swallow makes a summer, especially considering they still lost the game against a relatively weak Australian side, and also given it's only weeks since their embarrassing 2-0 annihilation against NZ & not long from their previous lost to the Windies.

While they did show plenty of guts & resolve in that chase, if we're honest they were always batting from a long way behind, which tends to make it a lot easier mentally. As the commentators rightly pointed out, in those massive chases, it becomes harder the closer you get.

What about you? Have they gone up in your rankings after that loss?

 

[vcs]

Pakistan really impressed me this game. But you don't get any points for moral victories. Remains to be seen whether they can carry on this standard of performance through the rest of the series. It should only get easier for them from here on in. They'll be better acclimatized to the conditions, the Melbourne and Sydney pitches should help Shah a bit more, and they know that Australia are quite beatable. Amir and Riaz have looked good, and the younger batsmen have shown they can score runs here. They need to hang on to their catches, basically.

 

[Flem274*]

the backlash against pakistan has just been typical of the "you're amazing or terrible, no middle ground" attitude current CW has tbh. team ratings are written like click bait.

pakistan played very well in england, mostly slaughtered the windies until the windies pulled out their once a year test performance then in a shock announcement an asian side got slaughtered in NZ

Last summer NZ were #125463 in the world, before them I think it was India who were the worst ever and they will be again once they leave home. Australia are the worst team in the world whenever they go to England or Asia and England are the worst whenever they play in Australia or drop a test to WI/random asian side at home

There is no clear #1 and the current trend of ranking Pakistan below the Solomon Islands is dumb

 

[Zinzan]

the backlash against pakistan has just been typical of the "you're amazing or terrible, no middle ground" attitude current CW has tbh. team ratings are written like click bait.

Only in Pakistan's case there is a middle ground, since most seem to be currently ranking them about 5th in the world out of the 10 Test teams. I'd say number 5 out of 10 is pretty much middle-ground isn't it?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't read anyone arguing that NZ, SL or the Windies should be higher, so if there's anything extreme going on, it's your observation about it being black and white

 

[TheJediBrah]

Pakistan really impressed me this game. But you don't get any points for moral victories. Remains to be seen whether they can carry on this standard of performance through the rest of the series. It should only get easier for them from here on in. They'll be better acclimatized to the conditions, the Melbourne and Sydney pitches should help Shah a bit more, and they know that Australia are quite beatable. Amir and Riaz have looked good, and the younger batsmen have shown they can score runs here. They need to hang on to their catches, basically.

It's also important not to realise that the Test wasn't quite as close as it looked. Aus batted ****, threw away a lot of wickets (2nd innings pretty much all declaration wickets) and still won by 40 runs & 5 wickets.

Good to see some fight though

 

[Zinzan]

It's also important not to realise that the Test wasn't quite as close as it looked. Aus batted ****, threw away a lot of wickets (2nd innings pretty much all declaration wickets) and still won by 40 runs & 5 wickets.

I think this is fair actually.

 

[TNT]

It's also important not to realise that the Test wasn't quite as close as it looked. Aus batted ****, threw away a lot of wickets (2nd innings pretty much all declaration wickets) and still won by 40 runs & 5 wickets.

Good to see some fight though

Agreed, some good fight by Pakistan but Australia had dropped down a gear or two and were looking to cruise home.