Number 1 Ranking: Deserved or Not?

There was a great amount of hoopla and jingoistic fervour around the time the Indian test team achieved the No. 1 ranking, which seems likely to now be conceded to the English team. However, we need to take a step back and see how we reached the supposed zenith of test cricket.

India is playing its 14^th test series since their infamous tour to Australia in 2007-2008. A tabular representation of their results is as follows:

Opposition	Venue	Result
South Africa	Home	Drawn (1-1)
Sri Lanka	Away	Lost (1-2)
Australia	Home	Won (2-0)
England	Home	Won (1-0)
New Zealand	Away	Won (1-0)
Sri Lanka	Home	Won (2-0)
Bangladesh	Away	Won (2-0)
South Africa	Home	Drawn (1-1)
Sri Lanka	Away	Drawn (1-1)
Australia	Home	Won (2-0)
New Zealand	Home	Won (1-0)
South Africa	Away	Drawn (1-1)
West Indies	Away	Won (1-0)

What jumps out at you from this table is that, India has not lost an away series since mid-2008, for a period of 3 years, India has not been defeated on its travels, which is in itself is no mean achievement. However, they have not comprehensively beaten any of the major test playing nations in their backyard. This current series against England is now reduced to a fight for the number one spot, being 2-0 down in the 4 match series, Indian cannot win, but they can salvage pride. This they may end up doing, but their claim to the number one ranking has weakened considerably.

Despite all the jingoistic rhetoric you get to see regarding the test rankings, there are some things which are quite clear. Previous dominant test teams, have built their dominance upon a world beating bowling line up. The West Indies in the 80’s and early 90’s, and thereafter the Australians, till very recently, produced bowlers of the highest quality. And not just one or two, they produced these bowlers with alarming regularity. This is the point at which I start looking at my Indian team, and realise that the cupboard is pretty bare.

Despite all the negative coverage about the Indian batting in the trent bridge test match, I still maintain that if your bowlers concede 400 runs in one day, there is precious little the batsmen can do to remedy the situation. Our fast bowlers, aren’t really fast, Zaheer is possibly the most skilful quickie India has produced, but beyond him there is really no one else. Praveen has skill, and a big heart and gives it his all, but his lack of pace will ensure that his utility will continue to diminish with time, as high class batsmen will eventually sort him out. Ishant and Sreesanth though brimming with talent, are too erratic and inconsistent in the longer form of the game.

Coming to Bhajji, I have always believed that he is a different bowler when there is a second spinner in the team. When he is the lone spinner, he just cannot pull out the performances required of him. He has had basically 2-3 good years, and many more average ones over his career, and his average of over 32 runs per wicket does not signify a world beater such as the likes of Shane Warne, Muralitharan or Anil Kumble. On parity, after looking at the contributions over a period of the last 2 years to his side, I would not rate Harbhajan Singh as even one of the top 3 spinners in the world currently, those would be Graeme Swann, Daniel Vettori and Shakib Al Hassan.

Coming to the fast bowling reserves, we have Munaf Patel, Jaidev Unadkat, Abhimanyu Mithun etc. none of whom inspire any confidence in a brighter tomorrow for our pace attack. In the spin department, there is Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha on the fringes, and neither has had much of an impact whenever given the opportunity.

Considering the state of our bowling department, no amount of strength in batting can compensate for it. Unless the Indian selectors come up with some young guns in the bowling department and pretty soon at that, the upcoming tour of Australia and other fixtures as well, could be equally disastrous as the current India-England series.