Australia Ashes underdogs after Test ranking drop?
Australia have slipped to their lowest position in the ICC’s Test rankings after their 2-0 series loss to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750.
The loss – by one wicket in the first Test and seven wickets in Bangalore today - saw Australia shed three ranking points to fall to fifth position in the rankings with a total of 110 points, the lowest they have been ranked since the rankings were introduced in 2003.
That’s two less ranking points than the old enemy, England, who now sit in fourth place on the table ahead of the sides’ 2010/11 Ashes series.
Australia can regain fourth position from Andrew Strauss’ side with an Ashes win – although winning back the coveted urn should provide more than enough incentive for the home side when the series gets underway in Brisbane on November 23rd.
But while India look to have settled into the No. 1 ranking for the immediate future, taking an 11-point lead over second placed http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757, Australia’s rankings drop has to be playing on the minds of Ricky Ponting and his team ahead of the Ashes.
After all, when they last took on England (in Britain) in an Ashes series, Australia were perched at the top of the rankings, and had been since their inception.
Since England took victory at The Oval to seal a second straight home Ashes win in the 2009 summer, knocking http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 off the No. 1 spot in the process, that top ranking has become ever more distant.
Test series victories against the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 were one thing, but in four Tests since (two against Pakistan in England and the series in India) Australia have won just one match, admittedly a 150-run thrashing of Pakistan at Lord’s.
It’s a decline that couldn’t have come at a worse time for Ponting, who has already suffered the ignominy of captaining Australia to consecutive Ashes losses in England and who, if England can complete an Ashes victory down under, would be the first Aussie skipper in more than a century to lose three Ashes campaigns.
Whatever the outcome by the end of Sydney’s January Test, Australia’s latest drop in the rankings make it increasingly difficult to believe that when England touchdown in Australia next month they will do so as the Ashes underdogs.
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