Australia Cricket / Andrew Hughes / 02 December 2008 / Leave a comment

Watch out punters! As India and South Africa challenge Australia for the title of best Test team in the world, some dangerous fallacies could do serious damage to your wallets. Read Andrew Hughes on why serious cricket punters should know their rankings..

No-one has yet come up with an accurate and straightforward way of determining the best Test playing nation. The ICC is currently considering proposals for a Test Championship, but few of the suggestions appear to be all that attractive. In the meantime, the ICC ranking system makes a fair stab at the task, though the complex mathematics involved do not make it easy for cricket fans to embrace.

But for punters, it's vital to know the relative merits of the teams you're betting on. You may use the ICC rankings, your own ratings or you may just watch a lot of cricket and back your judgement, but whatever your method, every serious cricket punter should be able to list the Test playing nations in order of ability.

Of course, for the last 15 years, anyone with even a passing interest in the game knew that it was a case of Australia first and the rest nowhere. But the times they are a-changing. Australia's makeshift team were comprehensively outplayed in India and the latest ICC ratings show that both India and South Africa are closing the gap on Ricky Ponting's men.

However, this tightening of the race for the unofficial Test championship is leading to some misguided theories. There is a dangerous fallacy doing the rounds, one that could do serious damage to the unwary punter's wallet. The suggestion is that, without McGrath, Warne and Gilchrist, Australia have entered an irreversible decline. But those who are considering laying the Aussies at [1.91] for next year's Ashes winners market should hold their fire.

It is true that the Aussies are weaker these days. They showed signs of poor planning in India and in their last six matches, have used 17 players, a high figure by their standards. But it is dangerous to mistake a slump for a terminal decline. And it is equally dangerous to assume that faults will never be rectified. Indeed, I think the evidence of recent weeks indicates that many of Australia's problems are being resolved.

On the bowling front, whilst pundits are still going on about Glen McGrath, a new three-man pace attack is being built, that offers a blend of pace, accuracy and guile. Lee and Clark are world class performers and the steady progress of left-armer Mitchell Johnson gives them a third dimension. He is a tireless worker in the nets and over the last few months has acquired the ability to swing the ball both ways, whilst eradicating the waywardness that had featured too often in his early Test appearances.

The selectors have also resolved the Andrew Symonds or Shane Watson debate. It is now clear that they do not regard Watson as a number six batsman and from now on, he will fill a role as first reserve seamer, ahead of Peter Siddle.

The search for the new Shane Warne is a long way from being over, but one of the few positives from the India tour was the emergence of Jason Krejza and particularly Ponting's faith in him. Expensive he may be, but then so was Warne early on. Krejza gives the ball a big rip and fits the bill of the attacking Aussie spinner. The cupboard may be fairly bare behind him, but then you could say the same thing about England and South Africa.

And we should not forget their greatest strength. Right now, Australia has the best batting line-up in the world. Ponting, Hussey, Clarke and Symonds represent a backbone of great solidity, a batting order to rank with some of the best in their history. Matthew Hayden may be going through a bad time, but form, as they say, is temporary. His makeshift partner, Simon Katich, is a much stronger and more capable batsman these days, whilst the talented Shaun Marsh waits in the wings.

The forthcoming battle between Australia and South Africa will be fascinating. Defeat for the Aussies will undoubtedly deepen talk of a crisis. But victory and strong performances from new men Krejza and Johnson could usher in a new era of Aussie dominance and leave those betting against them considerably out of pocket.