sangakkara and muralidaran top batting and bowling rankings

after the last test kumar sangakkara joined muttiah muralidaran (who was there for some time) at the top of international cricket council (icc) test rankings.

top ten

batsmen:

1. kumar sangakkara (sri), 938 points

2. ricky ponting (aus), 936

3. jacques kallis (rsa), 935

4. mohammad yousuf (pak), 885

5. mike hussey (aus), 874

6. kevin pietersen (eng), 848

7. younis khan (pak), 816

8. matthew hayden (aus), 803

9. shivnarine chanderpaul (wis), 762

10 michael clarke (aus), 751

bowlers:

1. muttiah muralitharan (sri), 910

2. makhaya ntini (rsa), 808

3. dale steyn (rsa), 775

4. stuart clark (aus), 769

5. matthew hoggard (eng), 733

6. brett lee (aus), 726

7. shane bond (nzl), 724, anil kumble (ind), 724

9. shaun pollock (rsa), 701, shoaib akhtar (pak), 701

icc website is migrating to yahoo so is not quite complete but the main rankings are there.

෴

we should win the test matches against australia

equation is rather simple. without (quite unlikely) interruptions there will be two results in the two test matches. question is who will win?

because we have the better bowling attack we should. (for the same reason, in theory we should have better results from tests than one day matches during next year or two generally; longer the match format better results we should have) while our batting is not at its best and not quite up to the standard of australians (esp. without kumar sangakara) it has more than enough talent and experience to post the scores required to get australians out twice.

if we lose, it will be our fault, period. (yes luck plays a part, but that is why there are two innings, thus two dice rolls, in tests)

ps
i personally don't agree with the way that marvan atapattu was included in the squad. he is a valuable and even necessary addition imo. but i shouldn't have any say on that decision, nor should the minister or the public at large. selectors and captain should have the final say and the responsibility. if they did not want to have atapattu (which i doubt) they should have had the freedom to leave him out.

as i have said before, cricket team is not a government and should not be a politically correct democracy or a popularity contest. if it is, we will end up with a team full of dull dependable mediocrities (a bit like the south african team or in another context american idol/sirasa super star) that always end up in the middle ranks of tournaments and league tables that actually test ability.

anyway i don't think it will have a big effect on these two matches since all the ppl involved in this instance are hopefully bigger than that.

෴