Indian Cricket team can move from Current Position i.e. fifth to second spot in LG ICC Test ranking if they beat England by 3-0 in the series starting from today (19th July 2007). At presently India has 102 points and they can gain 9 points and reach from 102 to 111 points if they clean swap England in the three match Test Series. If they do this then England would drop from 115 points to 108 points. If India beat England by 2-0 then they will gain third spot in LG ICC Test cricket ranking just behind England. In other case if India will not go according to above i.e. if they loose the series by 3-0 or 2-0 then India have to move at seventh place just above West Indies and Bangladesh. If India wants to repeat the history after 21 years then they have to play really well. According to Kapil Dev India must go with 6 batsman & 5 bowler combination against England at Lords. He said if India can not perform with six batsman then it’s hopeless to play with seven batsman. With India having only one top-20 bowler currently in the squad (Kumble), this series will be an opportunity for several members of its attack to make a breakthrough into that elite group with the most likely candidate being Zaheer Khan, who is currently in 25th spot. As far as the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen is concerned, Alistair Cook (20th) and Paul Collingwood (14th) of England will want to move further up within the top 20 while it will also be a chance for third-placed Kevin Pietersen to keep the pressure up on Ricky Ponting of Australia in first position and Pakistan's Mohammad Yousuf in second. Dravid in eighth position and Sachin Tendulkar in 16th will be anxious to move further up the table. Since this is the last England tour for trio Sachin, Saurav and Rahul so they really need to perform well and must beat England to give Indian cricket team the believes they require on the foreign soil. Sachin Tendulkar has’t made century at Lord’s so he is also keen to make the most use of it make a ton at Lord’s. Indian batting trio need to perform together to give inexperienced bowling attack full support and chance attack English batsman to take 20 wickets. |
