2nd Best Team in the World?

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I’ve heard quite a few claims from Indian members that India are the 2nd best team after Australia now but is it as cut and dried as that? Officially England are 2nd in the test rankings at least and with the rise of Harmison as a genuine quick bowler and Strauss as a batsman, they look a pretty good unit. I think India are playing 3 ODI’s in England (Sept?) so that should be pretty interesting.

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Well Indian claim to be 2nd best because of 2 reasons.
1. Runners up to the worldcup. Throughout the world cup India layed better than anyone else except Aussies.

  1. They way Indian stood up to Aussies in Test series. Aussies cannot defeat Indian intheir home ground and at the same time lost to India in India. ( That really makes Aus tour of India in October yummy). Talking about England. Dont matter what ICC ranking claims if there is any team who is 2nd to Aussies is either SA or Ind. Definitly not England.
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Re: 2nd Best Team in the World?

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Mr Xtreme: *
I've heard quite a few claims from Indian members that India are the 2nd best team after Australia now but is it as cut and dried as that? Officially England are 2nd in the test rankings at least and with the rise of Harmison as a genuine quick bowler and Strauss as a batsman, they look a pretty good unit. I think India are playing 3 ODI's in England (Sept?) so that should be pretty interesting.
[/QUOTE]

Second best...BS, I don't buy it.

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Re: Re: 2nd Best Team in the World?

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by skhan: *

Second best...BS, I don't buy it.
[/QUOTE]

You would have bought it yesterday, I guess.

5

England are demolishing the Windies in back to back series and have just beaten a pretty good NZ side as well (admittedly without Shane Bond). They are better than you think F&B, at test level at least.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Mr Xtreme: *
England are demolishing the Windies in back to back series and have just beaten a pretty good NZ side as well (admittedly without Shane Bond). They are better than you think F&B, at test level at least.
[/QUOTE]

Beating West Indies of today is no big deal.
let them beat AUS,SA or India.

We will know their strength when the play SL next month.

7

India is the self annointed 2nd best team in the world. The Indian media hype machine kicked into overdrive to make people beleive this one.
First of all there is still a vast gap between India and Australia (as shown by the the various one day series since, and for that matter including the World Cup)
While India is a good club, I think they will have to perform against both England and South Africa and even Sri Lanka before I consider them a truly elite club. The Indian deficiency is still in bowling. While Pathan is a good find, most of the other bowler have failed to impress me. I think Balaji's "emergence" was very deceptive since it was against Pakistan's perenially fragile batting order.
Time will tell, but I dont think the Indians are there yet.