Just maybe we arnt as good as we like to think we are,or is it just playing the Aussies that gets into the players head space.Lets face it this isnt a particularly good Aussie team.Yet as we did before Xmas we have just folded when it mattered,and failed to put pressure on them in the first test.Would love to see this Aussie team chasing a series against us for change as i dont reckon they would handle it well.
Yes decisions have gone against us in both series but we have also missed chances though batsmen playing crap shots and shark bowling.
I just hate Farken losing to a crap Aussie team.
If Aussie win this series they will go #1 in the Test rankings.
Make of that what you will.
Who should be #1 then?
India are currently #1, based purely on home dominance really. Aussie waiting behind them in 2nd. South Africa are 3rd and in rapid decline. Pakistan are 4th and still a bit of an anomaly and somewhat unknown quantity. England are 5th and a team on the rise, they'll surely move up higher in the coming 6-12 months. Then we're 6th, Sri Lanka 7th. The Windies are a shambles in 8th. Bangladesh and Zimbabwe don't count.
The ranking system is hardly perfect, it has its flaws, but without an actual Test Championship in a format similar to the World Cup (one was mooted a few years ago) then how do you accurately define the best team in the world?
There is only 11 points seperating us and India in the rankings table. To me this represents fairly accurately the state of test cricket at the moment. No truly outstanding side like years gone by, almost every team struggling away from home leaving us with a rankings table that changes almost every series.
Of course Aussie may end up not winning this series and they will remain 2nd, or even slip to 3rd depending how this test goes.