With rain preventing any significant play at Port of Spain,
Pakistan has become the number 1 ranked Test side in the world. Although, the
tag of “the best in the world” needs no additives to make it sweeter but in
case of Pakistan, the rarity of this occurrence is what magnifies the
significance of this feat for the Pakistan Cricket and its fans.
It is the first time for Pakistan to stand as officially the
best Test side in the world since the introduction of ICC official ranking in
2003. During this period of just over 13 years, only four teams have claimed
the custody of that MACE and not surprisingly, Australians held it (83 months)
longer than everyone else combined (76 months).
But Test Cricket has been
around since much earlier than 2003, in fact, till mid 70s – before the start
of ODI World Cups – Test Cricket was the only format of Cricket to gauge the
brilliance of Cricketing nations. Naturally, other teams also feared better
than the rest during that pre-2003 era and it may look harsh not to acknowledge
the teams who performed the best in that era, especially the West Indies of
late 70s and 80s. Additionally, it also helps in benchmarking the performance
of leading sides of last two decades with that of teams of previous decades and
century.
To address the same
thought, ICC did apply its current rating system, some years ago, to results
since 1952 providing ratings for the end of each month back to 1952. 1952 was chosen
as the starting point as prior to this date, the number of competing Test teams
was small and the frequency of matches was quite low as well. The information
used to be available on ICC official website till few years ago but it is not
available there any more. Fortunately, found that table in one of the archives
that looks like this:
This retrospective listing shows that although Pakistan has
claimed the MACE for the first time in its history but, had the ICC Test
Rankings were in place since Pakistan started playing Test Cricket, it would
not have been the first time. Pakistan would have claimed it earlier as well,
though only for a brief period of 2 months – from August 1988 to September
1988.
Both of these listings also provide a good opportunity to
measure the share of dominance of different teams in the last 64 years (since
1952). In case all the months (in which a team remained number 1 in Tests) are
added together, it gives a good measure of the period of dominance of specific
teams.
This concluding picture highlights the significance of
‘Number 1 Test Team’ tag for Pakistan. For Australia, losing the MACE may not
be as significant as it is for Pakistan to get hold of it. After remaining
acknowledged as one of the most competitive sides in the Test Cricket Arena
since admission to it, the title of ‘The Best Test team in the world’ has
eluded Pakistan for a long time. Admiring and seeing the talent and excellence
of their players getting admired by others as well, Pakistani fans have longed
for it for too long. So long, that it has almost become a life long wish for
quite a few fans.
Finally, the wait is over and Pakistan is crowned the new
holder of the throne. That MACE is Pakistan’s to hold, at least for some time
and celebrations have just begun. To make it all even more prestigious, who
better to receive that MACE than Misbah ul Haq – the rightful custodian of the
MACE – without whose custody of the Team Pakistan, it would have
self-destructed itself yet another time before achieving this feat. Well done
Misbah, Well done Team Pakistan.