Yesterday’s ODI at Perth was momentous for the Australian and South African teams battling it out as also for international cricket as a whole. As Cricket360 has earlier informed you, the Aussies were just short of being dethroned from their top spot in international cricket and that just one more defeat at the Perth ODI would topple them from their perch which had seemed inviolable for so long. Since the Aussie’s loss yesterday, cricket news has been abuzz with this very fact of the seemingly invincible Aussies being nudged from the top of the table after a long, long time!

It seems that when a team is on the downhill slide as now we can conclude is the case with the Australian cricket team, it would seem that even the batsmen find new and creative ways to get out as was evidenced by the Aussie batsmen yesterday. Things just don’t seem to be going right for the Aussies right now, who have now been summarily deposed from the number one spot which they took for granted for so long. They fell short of the South African total by 39 runs to lose the fifth and final ODI as well as the series 4 – 1.

As the international cricket ratings now stand, the Australians and the South Africans teams are number two and number one, respectively with a 125 points each and the hitherto inviolable seeming top spot is now with the latter team. Team India follows at 120 points, trailing by just 5 points and is number 3 on the rating list. You could look at it another way and say that Team India is actually Number two on the ranking list.

 The Aussies can take some heart from the fact that they are still at the top of the points table in test cricket, where the cricket news for them is not so bad. They can also regroup, Marshall their resources and make a better showing against the New Zealand team whom they are due to play next which will restore them to their top spot if they win.

The import of this displacement of the Australian cricket team from the top spot is, according to Cricket360.com, the fact that international cricket is more interesting now that the top spot is no longer a foregone conclusion.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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