Moving forward as easy as staying still

THERE’S an old saying in the business world that to stand still is to go backwards but in Test cricket it works differently.

Sometimes by simply standing still you can go forwards because many of your rivals are going backwards.

That is what is happening to Australia in Test cricket at the moment.

The West Indian Test team is a fragile shadow of what it was in the halcyon decades of the 1980s and ‘90s which will never return.

Sri Lanka’s cricket system is at war with itself with allegations of corrupt selectors, sordid political influence and an unsettled, angry player group.

Pakistan have some wonderful individual talent but, inevitably, after not playing a home Test for a decade their domestic system which was never overly strong is in decline.

South Africa will be the next major nation to go belly up.

Their finances are shot and the administration of their game has become a rabble so rudderless that no-one seems quite sure who is selecting their current international teams.

The South African board have become so confused and clueless that they have caused international outrage by cancelling the accreditation of a group of journalists for no specific reasons.

More than 60 South African first class cricketers are now playing full-time in England as their home system collapses.

India, incredibly strong and getting stronger by the year, dominate the game.

They have lost one home Test series in the last 14 years and it may be another 14 years before they lose another one at home.

India has always had a decent spinner or two but this year they will become the only nation to finish with three frontline fast men averaging in the teens per Test wicket taken in a year.

It is a true measure of their might and it’s why they are much more disposed to playing a pink ball Test in Australia

next summer. Australia’s Test team is getting its act together but there is no great pressure on Australia to greatly lift its game.

New Zealand will provide a solid Test for Australia in the three Test series but the jury is out how the Kiwis will cope against Australia’s imposing pace attack pushing the ball beyond 145km/h into a zone the Kiwis have always found unsettling.