Australia strengthened their squad and claimed the No.1 men’s Test ranking in the ICC’s annual update with a 4-0 Ashes victory. England on the other hand has hit their lowest in the last 27 years. The Australian team also broke India’s five-year-long streak of being the best team by claiming the first spot. Under Virat Kohli’s captaincy, India was at the top position from 2017 to 2021. Right now, the team is in the second position.
Australia has never faced a defeat since January 2021. Pat Cummins took over the captaincy from Tim Paine ahead of the 2021-22 summer and led the Ashes crushing England. Australia then had a 1-0 (3) away series win over Pakistan in March, while India have beaten New Zealand 1-0 (2) and Sri Lanka 2-0 (2) at home but lost to South Africa 2-1 (3) away.
The Aussies are all set to play a two-match series in Galle in June-July. It’s going to be a challenge for them since in 2016, they were thrashed at 3-0.
India was the No.1 team for 5 consecutive years
Virat Kohli led the Indian team for seven years and his achievements as a Test skipper has been gigantic. He is the fourth most successful Test skipper after Graeme Smith, Ricky Ponting, and Steve Waugh. He was the most successful Test captain from India as under his leadership, India won 48 matches out of 68.
Kohli’s Test captaincy began in 2014 and his first Test series was in Australia where the team lost by 48 runs. Under his leadership, India won all the 11 Test series at home and led India to victory against Australia for the first time in 2018-19. The man himself mustered a total of 5864 runs in 68 Test matches with an average of 54.80 as the Test captain.
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