Review of Test matches as on 02 Mar 2020

After New Zealand’s 2-0 victory over India, this is the WTC points table:

India is still leading, while NZ has collected 120 points from the series to reach 180 points and 3rd position here.

The updated ICC ratings:

India is still at the top, followed by NZ in second place. NZ is now just ahead of third-placed Australia.

In the rest of March and April, the forthcoming Test matches are:

SL v Eng (counted for WTC table, 120 points, 60 points for each Test):

1. At Galle, Mar 19-23

2. At Colombo (SSC), Mar 27-31

Pak v BD (2nd Test), counted for WTC table, 60 points for this Test:

2. at Karachi, Apr 5-9

(Pakistan already won the 1st Test at Rawalpindi in February).

No other Tests until June.

 

 

Test matches of 2019-General summary

The summary of all the Tests played in the calendar year 2019. Here the teams are ranked by win/loss ratio. India is at the top with 7 wins and no losses, while Ireland and Bangladesh lost all their matches. Australia and Afghanistan (!) are next to India. Zimbabwe did not play any Test in this year, though they will resume in January 2020.

The ICC ranking tables at the end of the year are more meaningful:

A more realistic assessment, with Afghanistan overtaking Zimbabwe besides Ireland.

According to this, New Zealand is India’s closest rival with South Africa, England and Australia in joint third position (though they are actually separated by small fractions).

Then there is the new contest, the World Test Championship. Not all Test countries are involved. Even among the 9 countries involved, not all Test series are counted. An example is the 2-Test tour of England to New Zealand. This was the WTC points table at the end of the year:

It is still at an early stage, but it does seem that the other teams will not find it easy to catch up with India and Australia. By the middle of January, Australia had moved up to 296 and England to 86.

Snippets from Aus-NZ Test series

The 3-Test series ended in a clean sweep for Australia. Earlier in 2019-20 Australia had also swept Pakistan 2-0. All these 5 Tests ended in 4 days or less. A brief summary:

All 5 of these Tests ended on the 4th day.

They are duly recorded in the list of clean-sweep series:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/283942.html

And Australia’s captain TD Paine is presently the only Test captain who is a wicketkeeper. His Pakistani counterpart has been dropped since January 2019:

NZ set an unwanted record during this series-their 256 in the first innings of the 3rd Test is the lowest top score by a team in a Test series of 3 or more matches:

The previous record was set by South Africa in their tour of Australia in 1993-94. That was a somewhat less one-sided series than this and was drawn 1-1.

A summary of New Zealand’s totals:

Even the top score of 256 included a 5-run penalty after DA Warner was found to be running on the pitch during Australia’s second innings.

And the World Test Championship saw Australia getting a full 120 points and New Zealand none. Here is the WTC points table on 06 Jan 2020 which included this series as well as the first Test between South Africa vs England, which was won by the former giving them 30 points.

See how Australia is creeping up towards India’s total.