England's series with India continues to be a tight, and mostly low-scoring, affair. With home advantage, and four won tosses, England have now secured victory, with one match still to play: notably, the only game they lost, they chose contraversially to field first. In recent seasons, England have really struggled with their top order, and in this series this has been true more than ever; but other than the great Virat Kohli, few in the Indian team have scored runs consistently either. However, for Alastair Cook, a very lean year has led to his decision to retire from test cricket. It's another hole for England to fill, albeit that at the moment, Cook hasn't looked like contributing very much in any of his innings.
In victory, England have made much of the fact that they've beaten the best team in the world; but in my world ratings, which are less stable than the offical ones, they've already lost this honour, for the first time since August 2016, and South Africa, who were last top in November 2015, have replaced them. The standings are as follows:
South Africa 179
India 178 -22
Australia 166
New Zealand 144
England 132 +22
Sri Lanka 125
Pakistan 40
West Indies 15
Bangladesh -99
Zimbabwe -260
Ireland -295
No comments:
Post a Comment