No runaway best in Test cricket
Shane Warne, writing in the Times , says there is little to choose between what he reckons are the top four teams at the Test level, and gone are the days when there was one team, like the West Indies in the eighties and Australia for much of the
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
Shane Warne, writing in the Times, says there is little to choose between what he reckons are the top four teams at the Test level, and gone are the days when there was one team, like the West Indies in the eighties and Australia for much of the noughties, that was miles ahead of the others. The reason, Warne writes, is the lack of match-winning individuals and players whom one could really refer to as "great".
With the ridiculous amount of cricket being played, it is probably time to think of best squads rather than best teams. To be able to field your strongest XI is becoming a luxury and the absence of key players has a serious bearing on results. Ask South Africa, who really missed Dale Steyn against England in Centurion.
If they were the runaway best, they would have beaten England on that pitch in those conditions. I think the West Indies side of the Eighties and Australia in the late Nineties/early 2000s could have won with a day to spare. Without Steyn, the kingpin of the attack, South Africa lacked firepower to finish off the job.
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo