India's pathetic surrender in the last Test Match surely throws doubt on the nonsense that, by beating them, England could become the best cricket team in the world. England did not win the last match so much as India simply gave up; that's not to say that England may not well have won anyway, but the way in which India allowed England to dominate after having such a terrible start was hardly the mark of a side hitherto considered to be the number 1 international team. The truth is that India, Dravid and Tendulkar excepted, showed no steel and were pretty poor opposition.
On the other hand, England are a competent side, if not a great one. They have a number of players with undoubted ability, but rarely hit peak form at the same time; the opening partnership is too often a short one, and there is too often far too much reliance on the lower order to retrieve a wobbly situation. The bowling seems to be problematic, Anderson sometimes looking like a genuine world-class performer and sometimes not, while Swan seems to have gone off the boil; Bresnan, Broad, Tremlett and Finn, despite occasional top-flight showings, don't really seem to be consistent enough and wonders which of them might have found a place in an England team of earlier times.
If England do achieve the number 1 spot, it will, I feel, say a lot more about how weak international cricket now is, rather than how strong England are.
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