ICC Test Ratings.

[K]

Interesting that claim about Bumrah, because Virat is the batsman most comfortable across T20s, ODIs & Tests.

[Pies4shaw]

Cummins again showed why he is clearly the best bowler on the planet. 3 wickets in very difficult conditions on a very flat track. Faster to 100 Test wickets than Lillee or Thomson. And still ploughing through them.

[Donny]

Will be interesting, when the ICC ratings come out - re. Smith.

Before the 4th. Test, he was #1, on 904 points. Kohli 903.

Scoring 211 & 82 means he'll improve on his 904, but by how much. ?

[Donny]

Cummins took 7/103 for the Test. 5 were top order.

Again, will be interesting to see how his rating (908) improves.

He's 57 points ahead of Rabada and 73 ahead of Bumrah. However, Jasprit will gain good points for his 6fa in the recent Windies Test.

[shawthing]

It didn't take Smith long to get to #1 again. What a player!

[Donny]

Ratings after 4th. Test.

Smith rockets up to 937 points.

Cummins up to 914.

Full tables to follow.

[Donny]

Batting.

1 Steve Smith 937
2 Virat Kohli 903
3 Kane Williamson 878
4 Cheteshwar Pujara 825
5 Henry Nicholls 749
6 Joe Root 726
7 Ajinkya Rahane 725
8 Tom Latham 724
9 Dimuth Karunaratne 723
10 Aiden Markram 719

13 Ben Stokes 671

17 David Warner 651

25 Usman Khawaja 621

30 Travis Head 595

32 Jonny Bairstow 582

36 Marnus Labuschagne 568

[Donny]

Bowling.

1 Pat Cummins 914
2 Kagiso Rabada 851
3 Jasprit Bumrah 835
4 Jason Holder 814
5 Vernon Philander 813
6 James Anderson 806
7 Trent Boult 795
8/9 Josh Hazlewood, Neil Wagner 785
10 Kemar Roach 780

15 Stuart Broad 736

17 Mitchell Starc 696

23 Nathan Lyon 647

27 Chris Woakes 590
28 Moeen Ali 588

30 Ben Stokes ENG 577

38 Peter Siddle AUS 451

[Donny]

Sids is way low because, if a player is still available but not getting selected (for whatever reason), he loses ratings points, every time his team plays..

[K]

The broadcast last night in some break in play picked up on Cummins being the fifth-highest rated of all time, and the third-highest of modern times, behind Imran & Murali.

The more sensible interpretation would be that ICC's ratings are imperfect and should not be taken too seriously.

[Pies4shaw]

The records continue to tumble for Smith, who, despite falling short of a fourth century this series, became the first man to average over 100 in back-to-back Ashes campaigns.

... Smith made 80, his 10th consecutive score of 50 or more against England and the most by a batsman against any nation - breaking the record of nine by former Pakistan star Inzamam-ul-Haq.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/steve-smith-s-historic-ashes-feat-not-enough-to-rescue-australia-20190914-p52r80.html

Time to be clear about this. It's no longer capable of being dismissed as some sort of fluky streak - he's the best batsman in the World and the greatest Test player since Bradman. In fact, he's probably a much better player than Bradman, since the opposition didn't have the benefit of reviewing video footage endlessly trying to find weaknesses in the Don's day.

As for Cummins, the records show that, of players who have reached 100 Test wickets in the last 50 years, only Marshall, Garner and Ambrose have a better average (and even then, only slightly) - Marshall averaged 20.94, Cummins averages 21.25.

Cummins has a better bowling average at the moment than, eg, all of Warne, McGrath, Hadlee, Lillee, Donald, Murali, Imran Khan, Steyn, Miller, Lindwall, Shaun Pollock, Croft, Akram, Walsh and Holding. That's some group to be leading.

Whatever the flaws in the ICC's rating system may be, it is obvious that Smith and Cummins are performing rare feats and should be at the top of the batting and bowling rankings - by miles.

[K]

You are swayed by your heart, not your head (on Smith). You are ignoring the flat (if not dead) pitches that are served up in every Test match nowadays.

The reason is that they have had to dumb down Test cricket, because Test batsmen now are almost all dunces. This probably is the result of T20s and ODIs. Certainly, Holding sounds like he thinks so. ("It's ruined the game," etc.)

This T20 stuff was always going to come at a huge cost. It's obvious now that the three forms of the game are separate specialties (so we are astonished if anyone manages to dominate all three -- the only ones to do so being Kholi & Bumrah). Unless the pool of players has hugely increased (I'd guess that at best it has moderately increased) in the time T20s have taken over the game like a cancer, that just means the talent pool for Test cricket is diluted to a third or half of what it was before. And that's before we look at the ugly question whether even the Test players have had their techniques destroyed by the short-form games.


I have no idea why you'd just directly compare averages of bowlers when they are not bowling at the same time in the same conditions against the same batsmen.

[Pies4shaw]

There is a certain logical tension between asserting that Smith's performance needs to take account of "flat" pitches but you'd rather not compare averages of bowlers across eras.

And, no, I'm not swayed by my "heart" (assuming I have one, which is a dubious proposition, at best) - I don't much like Smith's batting and I have probably 50 batsmen ahead of him on "talent" or "style" or "technique" but the figures are the figures. The practical position is that no other Australian seems to be able to score a run against the opposition - but the opposition can't get him out and his numbers are way ahead of any other player, ever, except Bradman. Add to that that he started as a leg-spinner and that his average was very poor until he really "clicked", so that his average now is the highest it has ever been and you have a once in a century (or better) phenomenon. After 11 Tests (21 completed innings), his average was under 30. In his next 56 and a half Tests, he has scored 6,330 runs in 86 completed innings at an average of 73.6. Think what his average might have been coming in behind a competent pair of openers - say, Hayden and Langer, Greenidge and Haynes or (ahem) Ponsford and Woodfull.

[K]

[Pies4shaw]

No, people "are going overboard on Smith" because he is ridiculously good.

The context, such as it is, is that he's doing virtually all the batting for Australia on his own - he's not part of a strong era, getting an armchair ride; he's constantly coming in when the team is under pressure; the opposition is trying to hit him in the head because it can't get him out; and the opposition bowlers are grateful when he's off the pace, batting with the flu - because then they can keep him to a mere 80.

He has the second-highest batting average of all time. It is a measure of his greatness, not of the incompetence of every other player now playing.