ICC rankings: Gaping holes in India’s claim to status as world’s best Test team
CRICKET
Virat Kohli’s India have had their struggles overseas.Source: AP
UNLESS something changes quickly, serious questions will be asked of India’s status as the world’s best Test team.
Things have gotten ugly for India in England. Having pushed the hosts all the way in the series opener at Birmingham, the tourists were hammered by an innings and 159 runs at Lord’s.
The scorecard said India had lost in four days but in reality the rain-affected match saw less than two days’ worth of cricket with 170.3 overs enough to decide the match.
LIVE Stream the England v India Test Series on FOX SPORTS.
SIGN UP NOW >
Things did not go well for India at Lord’s.Source: AFP
By the end of this series the International Cricket Council’s Test rankings could be accused of playing a similar trick. Whatever happens across the next three matches, India will leave England as officially the world’s best Test team. By the end of this campaign India could have lost seven of its past nine and still have a five-point lead on top of the ladder.
It’s a ranking anomaly that raises some questions over the ICC’s methodology which does not weight victories at home any differently to wins away.
In the two years prior to the first Test against England, India had played 17 of its 25 Tests at home. In a positive step the new Test Championship beginning in 2019 should ensure such a ratio is no longer possible, with teams playing at least three series at home and three away every two years.
Since the current ranking period began in May 2015, India has played 21 of its 37 Tests at home and 28 on the subcontinent. Only England (23 Tests) has played more matches at home in this period. It’s scheduling the Indians have capitalised on, with their win-loss ratio at home over the past 39 months sitting at a world-leading 15.0 (15 wins, one loss) and 10.00 in Asia.
Anderson and Broad shine
1:45
In this period the Indians have only lost four of their nine Tests outside of Asia and won three. It’s not the worst record — only South Africa (W/L of 1.0) and Australia (WL of 1.17) have better W/L ratios away from Asia — but it is helped largely by the 2-0 series win India enjoyed against the West Indies back in 2016. The conditions for that series were on the drier side and the opposition were in a state of disarray.
Away from the spin-friendly conditions of the subcontinent and the Caribbean, things aren’t nearly as pretty for Kohli’s men. They may be guaranteed to hold onto the No.1 ranking at series-end but the all-too familiar critique of India being lions at home and lambs abroad is certain to return.
Like clockwork, India has seemingly reached the point in its four-year cycle where things fall apart. In 2011 MS Dhoni’s side went to England sitting atop the rankings after a period of dominance at home and lost 4-0. Five months later they came down under to suffer another 4-0 whitewash.
Australia will be hoping history repeats itself this summer when the Asian powerhouse ventures south again. And there are reasons to be optimistic from an Australian perspective.
India has lost four of its five Tests in the pace-friendly conditions of England and South Africa, with its one victory coming in a dead rubber at Johannesburg.
Kohli is the only Indian to have scored a century across those five matches — he’s scored two — and one of only two averaging more than 30. The other is seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who has averaged 33.66 across his four innings. Worryingly for India, the next best average also belongs to a man who in the side predominantly for his bowling — off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin (25.00), whose 33 not out at Lord’s is India’s third highest individual score of the series, behind Kohli’s 149 and 51 at Edgbaston.
They are numbers that reflect the reliance India has had on Kohli away from the subcontinent. No wonder the skipper is nursing a stiff back.
Virat Kohli was hindered by a stiff back on day four.Source: AP
There is a silver lining however. Although India’s one victory away from home came in a dead rubber that match was played on a Johannesburg pitch so juiced up for the seamers that South Africa opener Dean Elgar felt the match should have been abandoned. The Test saw first drop Cheteshwar Pujara score a half-century, opener Murali Vijay bat out 127 deliveries to dull the new ball in the second innings, and middle-order mainstay Ajinkya Rahane make a fluent 48.
It’s the type of performance India needs to produce more regularly on the road. Maybe then their status as the world’s best Test team will stop being questioned.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/cricke...m/news-story/0256f5dac1736e2971863e40f1325f09
