Ponting eager to see Aussies claim England’s top Test ranking – Cricket News Update
The Australian team find themselves in a position to grab the top spot on Test team rankings away from England if they can manage a series sweep against the Windies in the upcoming 3-match series due to begin on April 7, 2012, at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown,
Barbados.
The prospect is an exciting one for any Aussie player, and most of all for http://www.senore.com/Cricket/RT-Ponting-c2377, who has made it his goal to reclaim the Ashes.
“It goes to show we're on the right track to turning our cricket around and probably goes to show that England might have been at the start of the end of their cycle,” Ponting told AAP.
The Aussies are currently at number 4 on the rankings table, with a rating of 111, while the Poms dominate the chart with 118. The Australian team’s status took a nosedive following their humiliating Ashes defeat on home ground last year, while England maintained
a steady upward climb, defeating India 4-0 in a Test series last year which took them to number 1 on the rankings.
“England have got a taste of it up there for a little bit and have started to struggle a bit in their last couple of series,” Ponting observed.
As the year progressed, the team’s rankings began to undergo changes. The Aussies moved one up from their fifth position after their 4-0 defeat of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 earlier this year, which took them to fourth place. England however, found themselves the subject of
a humiliating 0-3 whitewash by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 in the UAE.
While the Poms managed to cling onto their number one ranking, the status hangs by a thread. Currently playing a 2-match Test series against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758, out of which they have already lost the first Test by 75 runs, a second defeat could result in a shift
in rankings. Furthermore, if the Aussies manage a 3-0 series sweep in their upcoming Tests against the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760, they may find themselves moving upwards – an exciting prospect for Michael Clarke’s men.
Despite the chance of an impending rise in rankings, Ponting admitted he understood the pressures the English squad was currently facing.
“When you're up the top and you've got everyone trying to chase you, it's hard to maintain that,” he said.
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