NZ are ranked ahead of Pakistan who have lost 6 consecutive away Tests and even lost to the WI in the UAE. Further, India has only taken 20 wickets once in the past year. Thus they too deserve to be in tier 2 based simply on a 20 wicket criteria.pariah wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2017 6:56 amIf you can take 20 wickets home and away you will ALWAYS be top tier.Kriterion_BD wrote: ↑Sat Aug 05, 2017 7:18 pmHow does PAK get into tier 1?
Minus Misbah and Younis they will struggle like the current SL team. OK not that badly, but still.
Secondly if you can pick two different sets of 4 bowlers in your XIs, and still retain the ability to take 20 wickets then you are top tier. Pakistan have done that several times, far more than any other team (bans; injuries, suspensions, dropped-loss of form).
The current ENG-SA Series has got porous batting orders (Ballance, Jennings, Westley, Malan vs Kuhn, Duminy, de Bruyn), just like most Test sides. Bowling is what has kept the Series world class. SA batting also struggled in NZ and AUS recently, as would ZIM/BD bu bowling came through.
Only IND (and BD) have a settled Test batting order right now, with AUS almost there. Bowling will decide a lot of matches for a very long time to come.
When SL toured ZIM last year, they won and dominated because ZIM simply couldn't take their wickets.
All those 12 sides are in the same bracket because of that.
Overall, only 4 teams belong in a supposed top tier: Aus, Eng, Ind, and SA. Even then most of them struggle overseas with the possible excpetion of SA.