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A historical review of the highest Test rankings for ALL teams

vandokkum said:
Australia has been so many times more dominant than both India and Pakistan combined, in both tests and odis. I wonder why. Cricket isn't even the biggest sport there, while it's pretty much the only sport in India and Pakistan.
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For the same reason NZ can produce world class players despite having a tiny population.

I think , NZ may have a better cricket related infrastructure/set up than Pakistan. I have never been to Pakistan so I may be wrong but that's my impression. It allows good players to get better and decent player to become good. Talent pool will always play some part, but number of cricketers making a living at first class level makes a huge difference. India has gotten better in that aspect but still a recent development. Pakistan lags big time in this aspect right now.

It's not a coincidence that Indians have a better cricket team after BCCI got money and put some decent infrastructure/set up at lower levels.

Aus has big enough number and a very good institutional set up.
 
To add, sports and Aus goes hand in hand.
 
#GreenRoars said:
So much love and final verdict on rankings :)))
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Yeah, these stats are used to say India > Pakistan historically, which is wrong.

If stats are the law, then Younis is equal to or greater than Dravid, which is wrong too.
 
Can't believe Indian fans are so excited to be the undisputed No. 1 team of Asia.I mean look at the other asian teams.Bangladesh, Pakistan and Srilanka lol.Even a combined XI will lose to India 9/10 times in all formats.We should raise our standards and not bother about what fans of minnow teams like our neighbours in east, west and south have to say.I bet these teams would have a hard time even against Karnataka :yk.Such is the inferiority complex that these fans resort to hilarious arguements like India gets easier pitches in overseas conditions and wins at home due to doctored pitches.Lol atleast we don't lose to Zim and SL at home.We should try to emulate what Australia have done in ODI cricket and win more often away in tests like SA did recently.India has easily been the best Asian team in away tests thanks to 3 series wins in WI,2 in NZ and 3 in Eng and a superior record vs Aus and SA than minnows of Asia.
 
vandokkum said:
Australia has been so many times more dominant than both India and Pakistan combined, in both tests and odis. I wonder why. Cricket isn't even the biggest sport there, while it's pretty much the only sport in India and Pakistan.
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It is our National Sport to be fair.

Number 2 in every state and there is a big overlap with cricket fans/players and AFL and NRL and Rugby fans/players
 
So we were #1 in 1973-1974 , 1980-81 (6 months) and in the period between 2009-2011 :13:

Makes sense. We had a world beating team in 1980-81 and of course in 2009-11 we were unstoppable.
 
The Rankings also prove that the all time Win-Loss ratios are misleading.

India has been far more dominating than what the "All time Win-Loss ratio" suggests.

WinLoss.jpg
 
I did a yearly analysis of the data I got from webarchive courtesy [MENTION=53377]jeetu[/MENTION] and this is the result for ind and pak depending on their ranking in that particular year.

Some times few countries are not listed on the rankings at all .. I assume those countries have lesser ranking than those that were listed. If this is incorrect assumption let me know and I will re-calculate.

So far the overall summary is that Ind ahead in 34 years and Pak ahead in 30yrs. Pretty even.

Here is the individual years

Code: 
	Year	Winner
1	1952	IND
2	1953	IND
3	1954	IND
4	1962	IND
5	1963	IND
6	1964	IND
7	1965	IND
8	1966	IND
9	1967	IND
10	1971	IND
11	1972	IND
12	1973	IND
13	1974	IND
14	1975	IND
15	1980	IND
16	1981	IND
17	1982	IND
18	1995	IND
19	1996	IND
20	1997	IND
21	2001	IND
22	2003	IND
23	2004	IND
24	2005	IND
25	2006	IND
26	2007	IND
27	2008	IND
28	2009	IND
29	2010	IND
30	2011	IND
31	2012	IND
32	2013	IND
33	2014	IND
34	2015	IND

1	1955	PAK
2	1956	PAK
3	1957	PAK
4	1958	PAK
5	1959	PAK
6	1960	PAK
7	1961	PAK
8	1968	PAK
9	1969	PAK
10	1970	PAK
11	1976	PAK
12	1977	PAK
13	1978	PAK
14	1979	PAK
15	1983	PAK
16	1984	PAK
17	1985	PAK
18	1986	PAK
19	1987	PAK
20	1988	PAK
21	1989	PAK
22	1990	PAK
23	1991	PAK
24	1992	PAK
25	1993	PAK
26	1994	PAK
27	1998	PAK
28	1999	PAK
29	2000	PAK
30	2002	PAK
 
Civil said:
Isn't it more strange to try to contextualize data that is the most simple to explain. I would understand these contextual debates for batting or bowling stats. but over that much a time period and just talking of overall team results isn't it simple just to ask the following:

Who has better tests winning % against all teams, Pak or Ind?
Who has more away test victories and better away %, Pak or Ind?
Who has better record vs. EACH OTHER.? and in each others home?

Indian fans know the answer to this, and no amount of ranking calculations and missed golden oppurtunities contextualization etc. can change it.

I would show the same for the ODI's but I actually can give Indians the World cup thing that one annoys me, but no matter how good our overall record is we need to win one there before we can claim we are the better over time.
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Can u pls share some records for win-loss %age outside home excluding minnows. Also for %age of wins against all other teams.
 
hur rizvi said:
LOL how can you remove 15 year period from 60. That's 25% of duration gone
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Removing to show that Pakistan was only better than India for thouse 14 years, of course you get credit for being very dominant in those 14 years but outside of those 14 years you have been below India
 
carrom_ball said:
Removing to show that Pakistan was only better than India for thouse 14 years, of course you get credit for being very dominant in those 14 years but outside of those 14 years you have been below India
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Even without those 15 years our records are almost equal, which shows PAkistan have been far better than India as a Test unit
 
hur rizvi said:
Even without those 15 years our records are almost equal, which shows PAkistan have been far better than India as a Test unit
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As a test unit Pak has been slightly better than India but we are comfortably ahead in ODIs and t20s, we are even ahead in head to head :srini
 
carrom_ball said:
As a test unit Pak has been slightly better than India but we are comfortably ahead in ODIs and t20s, we are even ahead in head to head :srini
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For ODIs you cant exclude half the duration and say you are better overall LOL

T20Is, you are obviously better in short history of this format, but had you played that format against us in 80s and 90s record would have been similar to ODI oerall.

I was talking specifically the test format though, read my post
 
hur rizvi said:
For ODIs you cant exclude half the duration and say you are better overall LOL

T20Is, you are obviously better in short history of this format, but had you played that format against us in 80s and 90s record would have been similar to ODI oerall.

I was talking specifically the test format though, read my post
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As brother tusker posted above, India was ranked above Pak for 34 years, Pak was ranked above India for 30 years, game over, India wins :msd, anyway India is beyond stats :afridi
 
carrom_ball said:
As brother tusker posted above, India was ranked above Pak for 34 years, Pak was ranked above India for 30 years, game over, India wins :msd, anyway India is beyond stats :afridi
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Sada Khus raho, Baaabo. Game over

India >> WI of 80s and AUS of 2000s too
 
hur rizvi said:
Even without those 15 years our records are almost equal, which shows PAkistan have been far better than India as a Test unit
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TBH there were times when India was the better team in 60s n 70s but cricketing ties were suspended because we fought 2 wars.Same is the case now Indian LOI team is much better but we dont play.

The only time we played ODI cricket continously was in 80s n 90s and Pakistan team was no doubt the better team.Same with tests in late 70s n then 80s.
 
carrom_ball said:
Nah bro, we aren't delusional, Aus and WI were better than us and We were better than you #juststatingfacts :srini
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India has won 2 world cups and been a finalist in another isn't that already enough to prove we are better than pakistan?
 
cricketjoshila said:
TBH there were times when India was the better team in 60s n 70s but cricketing ties were suspended because we fought 2 wars.Same is the case now Indian LOI team is much better but we dont play.

The only time we played ODI cricket continously was in 80s n 90s and Pakistan team was no doubt the better team.Same with tests in late 70s n then 80s.
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Test TIES were suspended in 90s too when Pakistan were much stronger than India. That would have negated the impact of 60s and PAkistan would still be the better team. Margin is quite large and we arent talking about H2H we are talking about W/L ratio overall in history.

All things considered Simple fact is from 1950 till now PAkistan are much better than India in test format, India can overtake in future but you cant change what has happened in History.
 
battler said:
India has won 2 world cups and been a finalist in another isn't that already enough to prove we are better than pakistan?
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In ODIs yes India are ahead now after Dhoni era, because I agree WCS are the ultimate destiny in ODIs. But these things dont count when we compare test history of the two teams.
 
hur rizvi said:
In ODIs yes India are ahead now after Dhoni era, because I agree WCS are the ultimate destiny in ODIs. But these things dont count when we compare test history of the two teams.
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I was speaking about odi's, in tests I agree that Pakistan have been better till about 2000 even though rankings may suggest otherwise.
 
battler said:
I was speaking about odi's, in tests I agree that Pakistan have been better till about 2000 even though rankings may suggest otherwise.
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For that I would suggest you to make another thread. This thread even its title is discussing Tests
 
hur rizvi said:
Sada Khus raho, Baaabo. Game over

India >> WI of 80s and AUS of 2000s too
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Point is bro, if you say Pakistan is better than India in Test, people will bring out useless rankings like this. If some how some where you prove that Pak is better, then they will say forget minnows and home record, real test is Away games.

And now according to away (Test) history, Pakistan has better W/L ratio than India. But guess what? People will say, forget away records, let's compare both with the top teams of e.t.c era, if you some how prove that still Pakistan was/is better, they will say ohhh delusional fans, still living in the past, let's talk about present.

Moral : Don't waste your time bro :))
 
hur rizvi said:
For me being No. 1 for two months in 80s (In presence of great WI team) is better than being no. 1 in other eras
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Nah I would take 42 months of dominance instead of a paltry 2 months of being at top. And also Pak has the least rating to have by a number 1 team. That shows the quality of cricket being played at that time.
 
Balthazar said:
Nah I would take 42 months of dominance instead of a paltry 2 months of being at top. And also Pak has the least rating to have by a number 1 team. That shows the quality of cricket being played at that time.
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2 months of no. 1 and a long duration of being 2nd to WI and only team challenging them in 80s is better than being no. 1 in many other eras.

Quality of test cricket was exceptional in the 80s, when Arguably most no. of ATGs were playing for any era.

Khair rankings are overrated. We should look at overall W/L to compare teams
 
cricketjoshila said:
We were a pretty good team in early to mid 70s.Gavaskar and co. Plus 4 spinners.

Its a travesty that whenever India has good team we cant play Pakistan.India didnt play Pakistan from 1963-64 to 1978 during this time India had a very good test team.Again we have not played from 2007 till now when were no.1 team in the world for 18 months.

And the bigger travesty is when we played Pakistan regularly from 1978 to 1987 Pakistan was undoubtedly a great team and we didnt even have a good spinner.

Again we played Pakistan regularly in 90s in ODIs when Pakistan was a great team now when we are very good LOI team we are not playing.
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That's an informative post. I was surprised to know that we beat the windies at their home and looks like that team was no mug either, having Lloyd, Kanhai, Sobers and Fredericks. Looks like we had a pretty good team in the 70s.

And yeah, it's a shame. I would love to see a test series between India and Pakistan happening.
 
Convict said:
Australian golden period started around 1995 when Pakistan was still fairly strong and would have had a team that could have normally ranked number 1
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SA had a much better performance in 90s. Aus not being there wouldn't have made Pakistan rank 1 in 90s.
 
hur rizvi said:
2 months of no. 1 and a long duration of being 2nd to WI and only team challenging them in 80s is better than being no. 1 in many other eras.

Quality of test cricket was exceptional in the 80s, when Arguably most no. of ATGs were playing for any era.

Khair rankings are overrated. We should look at overall W/L to compare teams
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Its not that cut and dry ... the WI team that is widely regarded as being the best team was the one that played under Clive Lloyd which had a number of other star players in their prime ( Viv, Greenidge, Marshall, Holding, Garner and to some extent Roberts). The team that Pakistan beat in 1988 did not have 4 of those stars : Lloyd, Marshall(injury), Holding , Garner and Roberts. here is the score card : http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63481.html.

When Marshall returned for the next 2 tests ... Pakistan lost one and barely avoided defeat in the other. Granted that didnt roll over like others but to say that they defeated *THE* Greatest WI team is not correct.

Secondly the ranking of the WI team at that time was 115. Compare that to the ranking of the Aussie team lead by Steve Waugh which had a ranking of 120 and lost the series(Not Drawn) to India in March 2001.

And for what its worth India drew a series with that same Pak side in Pakistan just a year later.
 
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Buffet said:
For the same reason NZ can produce world class players despite having a tiny population.

I think , NZ may have a better cricket related infrastructure/set up than Pakistan. I have never been to Pakistan so I may be wrong but that's my impression. It allows good players to get better and decent player to become good. Talent pool will always play some part, but number of cricketers making a living at first class level makes a huge difference. India has gotten better in that aspect but still a recent development. Pakistan lags big time in this aspect right now.

It's not a coincidence that Indians have a better cricket team after BCCI got money and put some decent infrastructure/set up at lower levels.

Aus has big enough number and a very good institutional set up.
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More than infrastructure the biggest road blocks for sports in general in Asia is the mindset of people and the corruption. When I was growing up sports was not a career option at all. PERIOD. One has to live in a Asian country to realize how corrupt the system is. Nepotism is almost a standard practice.

The most glaring example is Bollywood. Every half decent actors kith and kin gets a prominent role in films. I can guarantee you that Amitabh Bachchan's great grand kids will get to star in bollywood movies just like the kapoor family :)). It is in sharp contrast to Hollywood.
 
Tusker said:
More than infrastructure the biggest road blocks for sports in general in Asia is the mindset of people and the corruption. When I was growing up sports was not a career option at all. PERIOD. One has to live in a Asian country to realize how corrupt the system is. Nepotism is almost a standard practice.

The most glaring example is Bollywood. Every half decent actors kith and kin gets a prominent role in films. I can guarantee you that Amitabh Bachchan's great grand kids will get to star in bollywood movies just like the kapoor family :)). It is in sharp contrast to Hollywood.
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Spot on, Australia/New Zealand/England/South Africa are sporting nations.. Kids from a young age play sports and coaches at school level are good.. I remember growing up in my school during games period 70% of the time some teacher used to take up that period to finish her course..

Our school coach was so pathetic in football everyone wanted to play solo no one knew that passing the ball is also possible even the coach did not knew that you can pass the ball in football..

Fitness and diet is not heard off in our part, we can produce many engineers and doctors but we will never produce many great sportspersons.. Till the time sports remains a hobby/past time for kids and not as a viable career option it will remain the same..

Cricket is one of the easiest sports and possibly the only sport India/Pakistan has a chance of dominating and we can't be best in that too.. Just shows you how much far behind the rest of the world we are in terms of sports..
 
big_gamer007 said:
Spot on, Australia/New Zealand/England/South Africa are sporting nations.. Kids from a young age play sports and coaches at school level are good.. I remember growing up in my school during games period 70% of the time some teacher used to take up that period to finish her course..

Our school coach was so pathetic in football everyone wanted to play solo no one knew that passing the ball is also possible even the coach did not knew that you can pass the ball in football..

Fitness and diet is not heard off in our part, we can produce many engineers and doctors but we will never produce many great sportspersons.. Till the time sports remains a hobby/past time for kids and not as a viable career option it will remain the same..

Cricket is one of the easiest sports and possibly the only sport India/Pakistan has a chance of dominating and we can't be best in that too.. Just shows you how much far behind the rest of the world we are in terms of sports..
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hahaha ... I can sooo relate to all those things you said. Sometimes I'am surprised how we even managed to get to be soo successful at cricket having won all major trophies and being No.1 in both ODI's and Tests ... nothing short of a miracle.
 
big_gamer007 said:
Spot on, Australia/New Zealand/England/South Africa are sporting nations.. Kids from a young age play sports and coaches at school level are good.. I remember growing up in my school during games period 70% of the time some teacher used to take up that period to finish her course..

Our school coach was so pathetic in football everyone wanted to play solo no one knew that passing the ball is also possible even the coach did not knew that you can pass the ball in football..

Fitness and diet is not heard off in our part, we can produce many engineers and doctors but we will never produce many great sportspersons.. Till the time sports remains a hobby/past time for kids and not as a viable career option it will remain the same..

Cricket is one of the easiest sports and possibly the only sport India/Pakistan has a chance of dominating and we can't be best in that too.. Just shows you how much far behind the rest of the world we are in terms of sports..
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I disagree. Cricket (especially battting) is not an easy sport.

Batting requires significant practice to perfect and India is actually the world leader at producing technically adept batsmen because of a strong focus on batting fundamentals.
 
Now this should clear the myth that India were a pretty strong team in 70s.It was 80s where they lost their way and WI and Pak had a really dominant team. India came back strongly in 2000s and have been exceptional all these years. The only drawback with India is the overseas record where teams like Aus/ SA/ WI have fared better.
 
Ab Fan said:
Now this should clear the myth that India were a pretty strong team in 70s.It was 80s where they lost their way and WI and Pak had a really dominant team. India came back strongly in 2000s and have been exceptional all these years. The only drawback with India is the overseas record where teams like Aus/ SA/ WI have fared better.
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Did you mean to say weak team instead of strong team ?
 
anuk said:
Didn't they beat India in the 90s? Australia never beat India in that decade iirc. Australia even lost in SL.

Not all teams are good everywhere.
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We lost 1 test to Sri Lanka where we down to 9 men because Gillespie and Steve Waugh took each other out.

And sure we didn't win a series in India but South Africa didn't beat Australia in a series in either Australia or South Africa
 
Convict said:
I disagree. Cricket (especially battting) is not an easy sport.

Batting requires significant practice to perfect and India is actually the world leader at producing technically adept batsmen because of a strong focus on batting fundamentals.
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Not saying it's easy but Compared to other sports cricket is easier.. It's not like tennis or football or sprinting or boxing where you have to be at the peak of physical fitness to be the best..

Also what I meant is cricket is a sport which is easiest for us to dominate as it is not a global sport and the other sporting nations which play cricket it's not the first sport in those nations nor is it the only sport in those nations.. So our competition is supposed to be "weak" compared to other sports..


And if we can't produce world leader in a sport which is far from being a global sport and that too only in 1 aspect of that sport(batting) with a population of 1.3bill then we should just give up..
 
street cricketer said:
The number of matches played don't impact the rating points or the ranking, but only the total points.
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My refernce was why or how India stayed number 1 for that 2 year stretch...because it could be possible there was not much cricket being played!

Back in the day, tests being played regularly was not always the case, even sometimes for months
 
kamal said:
The Rankings also prove that the all time Win-Loss ratios are misleading.

India has been far more dominating than what the "All time Win-Loss ratio" suggests.

View attachment 66479
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Yep exactly, since it supports your argument, no matter how silly it is. So a team winning games does not matter at all, good to know especially when the gap is quite significant in winning percentage despite India having played a 100 more tests; this is even more significant since India only managed to win one more test than Pakistan despite that
 
carrom_ball said:
As a test unit Pak has been slightly better than India but we are comfortably ahead in ODIs and t20s, we are even ahead in head to head :srini
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Yep and that is what this thread is about as well, right? :-)
 
Convict said:
We lost 1 test to Sri Lanka where we down to 9 men because Gillespie and Steve Waugh took each other out.

And sure we didn't win a series in India but South Africa didn't beat Australia in a series in either Australia or South Africa
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Umm incorrect. Australia had already been bowled out for a poor score in the first innings and was already staring at a loss when Steve Waugh got hurt. If I remember correctly u didn't even know about this test series until I told u about it a few months ago. Australia was also losing the last few in the series before rains saved them. Please try to be more informative when u try to make posts.
Where does it say South Africa had to beat Australia to be ranked the best?
 
anuk said:
Umm incorrect. Australia had already been bowled out for a poor score in the first innings and was already staring at a loss when Steve Waugh got hurt. If I remember correctly u didn't even know about this test series until I told u about it a few months ago. Australia was also losing the last few in the series before rains saved them. Please try to be more informative when u try to make posts.
Where does it say South Africa had to beat Australia to be ranked the best?
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You don't
 
Historically Pakistan have been a better Test team and ODI team than India but I think in the next few years India will have a better win loss ratio than Pakistan in ODIs atleast.
 
Convict said:
Give him time to search through all 17,060 posts
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waiting on a mod to get back to me on how to do the search. there are too many posts to check one by one. in any case i know i'm right, i can't help it if ur memory is poor.
 
anuk said:
waiting on a mod to get back to me on how to do the search. there are too many posts to check one by one. in any case i know i'm right, i can't help it if ur memory is poor.
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Do you know what the thread was about?
 
Tusker said:
More than infrastructure the biggest road blocks for sports in general in Asia is the mindset of people and the corruption. When I was growing up sports was not a career option at all. PERIOD. One has to live in a Asian country to realize how corrupt the system is. Nepotism is almost a standard practice.

The most glaring example is Bollywood. Every half decent actors kith and kin gets a prominent role in films. I can guarantee you that Amitabh Bachchan's great grand kids will get to star in bollywood movies just like the kapoor family :)). It is in sharp contrast to Hollywood.
Click to expand...

big_gamer007 said:
Spot on, Australia/New Zealand/England/South Africa are sporting nations.. Kids from a young age play sports and coaches at school level are good.. I remember growing up in my school during games period 70% of the time some teacher used to take up that period to finish her course..

Our school coach was so pathetic in football everyone wanted to play solo no one knew that passing the ball is also possible even the coach did not knew that you can pass the ball in football..

Fitness and diet is not heard off in our part, we can produce many engineers and doctors but we will never produce many great sportspersons.. Till the time sports remains a hobby/past time for kids and not as a viable career option it will remain the same..

Cricket is one of the easiest sports and possibly the only sport India/Pakistan has a chance of dominating and we can't be best in that too.. Just shows you how much far behind the rest of the world we are in terms of sports..
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Well Another key difference is that cricket is not like Soccer, where playing in streets translate fairly well at national level, that's why guys like Ronaldo who came from slumps of Brazil was world best striker for most part of his career...

In Pakistan 99% of people who play cricket play, they play with tape ball, that cricket is very different from hard ball cricket(only think translates is bowling, that's why guys like Wasim, Amir despite being from poor family, with little to no access to hard ball were able to develop)... Pakistan has population of 200M, there are no more than 50,000(actual number maybe less than 30,000, total number of first class players are around 300, multiple that number with 80-100, that is the total cricket playing population who has access to hard ball cricket, that's about it) Pakistanis who play cricket with hard ball(atleast once per week frequency) at any level, that's not a lot of people.... I bet that number is higher even in NZ/SA(with 3-7M population).... Cricket is not really common man's sports at any level, nor it is common at all... Playing hard ball cricket is a big luxury in Pakistan...

Cricket is not really poor country's sports, look at even in India, they are moving IPL matches out of Mumbai because of water shortage, that is reality check :(

Pakistanis and Indians in this thread again are fighting like 5 years old, they both are average teams pretty much throughout 70 years.... They can never be like AUS/SA/WI, well they don't have athletes like WI, nor infrastructure like AUS/ENG/SA, you need to be really good at some front to dominate and build a great team... Threads like these make sense for AUSes and WIs fans, what have desi achieve to talk about great teams?? :facepalm:
 
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Tusker said:
Not **THE** WI Team lead by Clive Lloyd featuring Viv, Marshall , Holding , Garner amongst others.
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Did anyone else displace them?

The reason it is considered the greatest team is because of the length of their dominance not because of their peak. Which is a collective.
 
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miandadrules said:
Did anyone else displace them?

The reason it is considered the greatest team is because of the length of their dominance not because of their peak. Which is a collective.
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The WI team that Pak beat did not have the main cricketers that made the WI team No.1. See my post # 117.

Also FWIW ... Ind was No.1 for 6 months between Sep 1980 and Feb 1981. Thats right in the middle of Lloyd ERA. Granted that we never beat them in a Test match in the 80s in their backyard ( don't get me wrong this is still a great achievement even if Lloyd, Marshal , Holding and Garner were missing) but the rankings don't work that way. It has to be sustained for longer duration and as I said .... Ind drew a series with the same pak team a year later.
 
jeetu said:
Nice find , both India and Pakistan were juggling from 6th-7th spot back then. Low point for both countries.
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Yeah but I did improved rapidly after that. This was after a shocking series loss in the Caribbean where tendulkar was very poor.
 
Nikhil_cric said:
Yeah but I did improved rapidly after that. This was after a shocking series loss in the Caribbean where tendulkar was very poor.
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what can tendulkar do if u have kuruwilla,noel david,ajay ratra in the team.

even then they couldnt chase 100 in the fourth innings
 
Proactive_ said:
More like Gavaskar and some of the greatest spinners India has ever produced like Chandra and Bedi who got us 20 wickets overseas.
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That is true, I was going to edit my post to mention the spinners Chandra, Bedi and Prasanna but couldn't do it by the 2-minute limit.

It took a very special team in the 20th Century to beat WI in WI.

They even wrote a song for Gavaskar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V2UUuKcIeA
 
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Tusker said:
I just happened to run into this link which provides historical Test Rankings for All teams calculated retroactively using the current formula but based on past results since 1952 ( 64 yrs !! )

The results are pretty surprising

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_Test_Championship#Historical_rankings

Code: 
             Months  Highest Rating
 Australia	321	143
 West Indies	235	135
 England	106	125
 South Africa	48	135
 India	        46	130
 Pakistan	2	110


I cannot believe that Pakistan was No.1 for only a period of 2 months (Aug-Sep 1988 ) and SAF only 2 months more than India (Despite the 20 year absence)
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I assume by now India has overtaken SA. Next up is England. Given that they are ahead by more than 60 months, it should take a decade or more to catch up with them.
 
Monsee said:
Yep, during that time India was getting pretty much getting owned by them (1975 through the 2000's I would say) except for that one Packer impacted series in 1978 I think in India
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that series was 1979-80 and Pakistan played the full strength team. Asif Iqbal was the captain with Majid, Sadiq, Zaheer, Imran, Miandad, Wasim Raja, Iqbal Qasim, Mudassar all were playing. We lost the 6 match series 2-0
 
street cricketer said:
Somebody please explain to me how we stayed on to the no.1 ranking for 15 months in the 70s lol..
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Bedi,prasanna,chandrasekhar,venkat -indian spin quartet.Put them in turners -you get the picture.Plus a young gavaskar.Viv richards was Chandrasekhar's bunny.
 
vandokkum said:
Australia has been so many times more dominant than both India and Pakistan combined, in both tests and odis. I wonder why. Cricket isn't even the biggest sport there, while it's pretty much the only sport in India and Pakistan.
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Australia has/had some advantages in financial ability for access to time to play, equipment, top line facilities and much higher ease of access and standard of general facilities.

A better first class structure than some nations was a huge factor. For much of our history the Shield provided a grounding on every kind of test track/type of bowling.

Slightly less political selection issues (with acknowledgement that until the recent past it has been difficult to attract or retain/promote cricketers of diverse backgrounds).

Australia also never had trouble getting regular games against the best sides and had to lift or perish accordingly even when we were weak.

Worth noting that cricket is BY FAR the biggest summer sport- with only tennis a minor, also ran rival there. It is also the national sport and the only major national sport until the recent rise of soccer.

The football codes are divided along state loyalties.

It was only very recently that football started expanding into summer, before that everyone played a football code in winter and cricket in summer, no matter where you lived. So cricket had the market cornered for 6 months of the year and access to basically every young kid interested in sport.
 
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