While the Indians are raining on Steve Waugh’s valedictory series with some tremendous batting (they surely have the best batting line-up in the world right now), and New Zealand battle manfully against Pakistan, a series half a world away has gone largely unmentioned in the media.
Which is strange, because it has left NZ in a clear third place in world cricket rankings.
A week or so ago England lost a test to Sri Lanka. That result has promoted good old NZ to third. Yes, that’s right: NZ is the third best team in test cricket. Ahead of India. Ahead of the West Indies. Ahead of Pakistan. Ahead of Sri Lanka and ahead of England.
When I ask people over here, Australians that is, where they think NZ is ranked they say maybe sixth or seventh and react with disbelief when I break the awful truth.
Third.
The team has earned this position not through the failure of other sides (though that helps), but through stringing together a fine series of winning test performances. If you think of who the Black Caps have beaten over the last couple of years, including the West Indies away for the first time ever, it’s an impressive tally.
The way the rankings work is that a score of 100 means you are beating teams of your own rank as often as they beat you. We are slightly ahead of the game there with 104.
So in that context the upcoming series against number two team South Africa is crucial. As is this week’s result against Pakistan. According to ICC's forecasts of possible results, losing this test could drop us to fifth. A drawn series will leave us in third place even if India wins its series against Australia by one test.
Now I’d be the first to admit the Black Caps’ limitations and they have been dogged by serious injuries, most notably to Bond and Astle, but that just make their un-Heralded achievement even more notable.
The boys are battlers and we should be proud of them.
Now, let's move up to second!
Update
Such is the life of the NZ cricket supporter. Barring a total rain-out on the last day the Pakistan test has gone west. And that will mean Pakistan moves up to 102 points on the ICC table and NZ falls to 100 - and fifth place.
As the Herald points out that breaks a run of nine unbeaten tests. Solace could be that we may have found another quick.