No clear leader in the five-day game

@Chirukaz Jayasuriya, Kapugedara and Mendis just got dropped :) @ Saichandm - You need to get over "Rich BCCI" factor. Money is never bad. Zimbabwe's cricket (and now WI Cricket) has lost ground in world cricket only due to lack of funds. I remember Dave Houghton and one of the Flower brothers could not leave farming because cricket wasnt bringing in enough money for them. I do agree though that BCCI could/should pump in a few bucks to these nations. Be known that, outlaw Stanford is still regarded highly within WI cricket just cos he brought in the bucks. India, with all the money, did reach the top spot. Being rich is good. Cricket in India has grown since money came in, it hasnt gone down.

While I do agree with the assessment, I am not sure what Mr. Chappel brings in new to this assessment. All of us know what is required by any team to be no. 1 - Batting, Bowling and fielding. What he does significantly point out, and most of us seem to take for granted (and stupidly ask for Saching/Dravid/Laxman 's retirement) is - Do we have a batting powerhouse building up? In the past 10 yrs, I cannot recollect 5 bowling performances, but I can talk about 10 excellent innings coming from Sachin/Dravid/Laxman/Sehwag/Gambhir. Bowling has been a collective effort. We do not have a world match-winner. Dravid was inducted back in the one-day team because our youngters could not face bouncers. I do hope we overcome that. Not too sure if we necessarily need an all-rounder. Dhoni's presence eliminates that. We can go in with 4 genuine bowlers and 7 batsmen (including Dhoni). I miss the likes of I. Pathan though. Struggle for the top spot is defintely a great thing for test cricket.

A beautiful article at the right time. It is a good horse race and there shouldn't be a destination in the next 3 or 4 years for the race to keep test cricket alive as T20 is threatening the future of test cricket. Good luck to all the teams :)

India lack more than a fast bowler, they lack a competitive bowling attack. Ishant was over-rated and is now searching for lost form. He was bigged up to soon, whenever we have a fast bowler on these scenes they are hyped up before they even start their careers. Rohit Sharma was just borring to watch and how could comparisons even be made between him and Tendulkar! Apart from S.t, R.d, V.v.sL and a few others the rest of the team is just fame and celebrity hungry. Speaking as a indian supporter, i think once tendulkar and co retire, then the indian test team will crumble and most new players are money hunry over the ipl hence seizing their demise in the longer format of the game. Its a shame for cricket that the BccI advertise to much of the T20 disease!

how come any comment that criticises dhoni never gets published at cricinfo.I dont know whether this will get published or not as well.

I though the "ignored" test series btwn NZ and Pakistan was really sensational, enjoyed it thoroughly. Pakistan's bowling attack is just scary. where do they get these kids from? As Ian says, this is a really exciting period for test cricket. And i think after all the effort and work that's gone into India finally getting the No. 1 spot, the rest of the cricketing world's reaction is just ridiculous. Noone's saying they are as good as the Australian team of the early noughties - it's just a fab achievement, well done to them! and all the SA fans, guys, your team just lost an ODI series to England. It's a good team, but not all-conquering.

I agree with Ian. Things are looking good for cricket lovers who like to see competitive matches/series. The only thing I miss is quality fast bowling. Yes, some are good, but only sporadically. I mean, Johnson is the test player of the year, and so you can expect him to threaten all batsmen around the world for 2-3 seasons on the trot. Sadly that is not the case. The best bowler of the year is looking ordinary quite often. You can easily understand the quality of the rest ....

Being an Indian I just hope our board doesn't kill test cricket with the proliferation of T20's. The situation for the top spot in test cricket looks bright though. South africa seem the most balanced for the next two years as they could more or less retain a similar team. India will need the replacements for Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar to take to test cricket immediately. If bijay, Badrinath and another batsman do this then we should be fine. Australia as you rightly pointed out need a class batsman to replace Hussey for he seems to be on his last legs. Thats probably the result of his coming into test cricket too late. England would do well to continue playing with spirit and pakistan are as unpredictable as ever but have a young and energetic team. But akmal and aamer's advance in new zealand can only be gauged after they play in australia. Sri lanka have the potential to be number one and require kumar sangakarra to guide them. As for new zealand and west indies they need gumption

Even with the retirement of the Big 3, India's test batting should still be okay for years to come. Right now we have Gambhir, Sehwag, M. Vijay, Dhoni and Yuvraj. Of these 5, Yuvraj looks the weakest, but not bad overall. Yuvraj would have trouble (a) playing abroad, and, (b) taking the pressure in the 2nd innings when facing uphill run chases. That said, his performance against Eng and NZ were much better than in Aus the previous year so his increased experience seems to be solving some problems for him. So what about 2 more players to make up 7 batsmen? Well, obviously, we have no one the calibre of Dravid or Laxman, but Raina seems to have some potential and with time he will get better. For the moment, a makeshift Karthik would be okay as well. Finally, although there is no firm solution for the remaining 2 spots, there is no hurry either as I doubt SRT, Dravid and Laxman would all retire at the same time anyway.

' West Indies' greatest need is financial assistance' ? I think its more like proper financial management. All the money in the world cant help an indisciplined bunch of players.