South Africa is in big trouble once again, exactly similar situation as Last Test Match. Where they were 3 down at 2nd day stump, it would be interesting to see if their middle order is ready to face the challenge or not?
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Same as the first test match things were happening. In the thread discussion came across a statement Umesh Yadav's addition to the team will help India big. The initial wickets taken by him has helped the team to be more strong and collapse the middle order. India has its opening partnership good, and this has made the team score reach 600. As in the statement South Africa's innings is much much depending on the Middle order as the performance of openers is not to the necessity of the team to fight back for a win.
Indeed, One wicket more and then South Africa is looking for follow on, then Inning defeat. Yeah i was backing Umesh Yadav inclusion turn out he did exceptionally well in dusty wickets. its looks like both teams are batting on the different track.
South Africa : 58/5
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My suggestion is to include India, Australia, England, New Zealand, and Pakistan in the top division
I agree with @bryant.coleman list, its logical because it depends on current ranking of test Playing nation. If its about personal choice then I would like to choose India, Australia, England , South Africa, New Zealand for bilateral series.
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But the problem is that right now we are having a very one sided series between India and South Africa (two of the teams that would have figured in the division 1). So a lot of gap exists even within these divisions as well.
There is very simple solution to tackle this problem - Where home team dominates visiting team- Take away toss benefit , let visiting team decides if they want to bat or ball first. Then we are going to see very competitive games.
* South Africa team is going through some transition period after their legend players took retirement so i am willing to give them benefit of doubt. Only time will tell.
* Sri Lanka performs once a while.
* Pakistan : Current squad is one of the weakest test team in their cricket history and they don't even want to play Test format. but they perform in patches against England though.
* Bangladesh : I am losing patience when it comes to Bengali team.