South Africa's convincing
4-0 series win against India
has pushed them up to within
five points of the
Australians, while the
Indians slid back to sixth
place in the latest ICC team
rankings for one-day
internationals.
India were third on the
table as recently as April
this year, but since then
they have fallen after a
sharp drop in form which has
resulted in just three wins
in their last 17 matches.
South Africa, on the other
hand, have reached their
highest rating since January
2003. If they continue their
form against Pakistan early
next year, and if Australia
slip up in the VB Series
against England and New
Zealand, South Africa could
even be the top team going
into the 2007 World Cup.
India, meanwhile, are in
danger of slipping to
seventh place - where they
were in October 2005 - if
West Indies snatch a series
win against Pakistan in the
five-match series which
starts on December 5. West
Indies are currently only
marginally behind India. If
you remember back Pakistan
first test with West Indies
more or less coincided with
first ashes test,
highlighted at the time the
fact that Pakistan ranked
no3 were trading at 3.15 in
first test and 2,6 + in the
other tests to beat no8 side
at home....while Aussies,
no1 team were 1.4 to beat
no2 team at home
....reasoning as i said was
that the perception was that
the pitches would be flat
batters paradise and West
Indies would score just as
heavily as and so
draws were made
shorter....the point i made
was that, contrary to that
perception....actually its
not all teams that do well
on those tracks...the asian
sides do well because they
used to them and the heat
and humidity...but there was
no evidence in past
non asian sides batted as
well as the asian
sides....end result...pak
win series comfortably with
windies batsmen somehow not
able to match the runs
scored by pak on those"
flat" batters dreams.
Same thing when Sri Lanka
thrashes South Africa
in first test...yes the
wicket was flat...but
S.Africa score 160...Sri
Lanka replied with 750 and
they also went on to win the
2nd test
And like i have already
said...how come if the
wickets are batters dreams
have India only scored 20%
of their tons against
England at home in last 10
years Something does not add
up.... and its the
perception that does not add
up
Because contrary to popular
belief, the wickets in asia
are difficult, they slow
down and break up...spin is
key on them...and its the
spinners that win the games
on those tracks...not just
the batters just piling up
the runs
Yes there will be draws ,
but these are far more
likely to be between the
asian sides themselves,
simply because they used to
the conditions and , on the
whole, negate each others
spinning attacks.
However, although teams will win more at home than they have in South
Africa, don't forget that
they will obviously be much
shorter in price. Your
healthy balance at the
moment is essentially due to
India Pak and SL all coming
up with an away Test win at
juicy odds, so while the
teams will almost certainly
win more at home, I'm not
sure that you'll win more
money as a result.
I think you're probably
right that Asian sides are
overpriced away from the
subcontinent (in Tests
anyway, especially because
the draw is always too
short) but I'm not so sure
that they are at home. I
have no figures to back this
up, but I suspect that if
you'd backed England to
level stakes on their last 2
tours to each of SL, Ind &
Pak, then you'd come out
ahead even though they only
won 4 Tests out of 18. It
could be that it's the
underdog that is overpriced,
regardless of whether or not
the underdog is Asian (apart
from when the West Indies
are on tour, in which case
no matter how bad you think
they are, they always turn
out to be worse).
In my opinion, entrenched
viewpoints (e.g. Asian sides
are hopeless outside Asia
while non-Asian sides are
hopeless inside it) still
influence the market, even
though the amount of cricket
played nowadays means that
players get used to
different conditions earlier
in their careers.
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