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After a comprehensive series victory over New Zealand, Australia has risen to the top of the ICC Test rankings.
Do Steve Smith and his men deserve such a lofty position, I hear you ask?
Probably, such is the convoluted method by which the rankings are formulated it is difficult to form an argument against the team currently in the best form. And currently, that team is Australia.
Having said that, quite how India managed to reach the peak takes some explaining given they shouldn’t even bother travelling to the western world, such is their distaste for overseas assignments. But there you go.
Anyway, back to the original point. You can only play to the system placed in front of you and so by that measure the Aussies are now the world leaders.
If you win enough games you’ll climb the ladder and that is exactly what they have done. If my maths is correct, 10 wins have been accrued since the start of the West Indies skirmish last year, alongside just three defeats.
That isn’t form to be sniffed at and although the three losses saw the Ashes handed back to where they belong (come on, you know that makes sense!) the rankings consider the accumulation of individual results and not the series they form a part of.
That is why England, with more eye-catching results against Australia and South Africa away, have been hampered by their five losses to West Indies (one), New Zealand (one), Australia (two) and South Africa (one).
It is also the reason South Africa, for so long consistently the best side in the world by some distance, have paid for such a dismal turn in form in India and then against England.
With such a mish-mash of a fixture list and nothing that resembles a league of sorts with home-and-away series against all teams over a set period – that’s just international cricket, not necessarily a gripe – there is no definitive way of determining who is the strongest team over the short term.
It is a given that certain teams have been the undisputed number one – Steve Waugh’s Australia of the late 1990s and early 2000s and the all-conquering West Indies of the 1980s spring easily to mind but others you could probably take or leave.
Smith’s men fall into that bracket. On their day they are capable of beating anybody and there have been hints of the dominant style that characterised the great teams of not too long ago. However, there is still an inkling Edgbaston and Trent Bridge haven’t been completely washed out of the system.
Conditions that don’t suit tend to trip up teams short of greatness and until the day arrives where the sub-continent and England are conquered, Australia won’t be considered any more than a very good side.
Are they capable of ascending to such heights in the near future?
Of all the sides doing the rounds at the minute they have as good a chance as any and what they do have in their favour is the age of the players.
Apart from Adam Voges – just what has this man been taking? – there is little in the way of surgery that will need to be done in the next year or so.
This isn’t the ageing outfit that appeared in Cardiff, Lord’s etc a few months ago and if the selectors stick to their guns then there is a real opportunity for good and proper progression.
Joe Burns looks more and more like a Test opener every time he walks out to bat, Usman Khawaja has been reborn and Peter Nevill has slotted unobtrusively into his role.
Mitchell Starc could be the best seamer going around if his rise continues and Josh Hazlewood, who is a serious operator when he bowls the ball rather than puts it there, should be around for years.
Add to the pot the shoo-ins like David Warner, Smith and Nathan Lyon and there are solid foundations in place.
As to whether they remain at the top of the tree, that’s a question for another day. But as for right now they are looking down rather than up.
Are they the best? Probably.