ICC Rankings' Revolving Door: Starc's No.1 Return Is a One-Match Wonder, Nobody Noticed Jansen's Real Win

New Delhi/Liverpool. The ICC's latest Test rankings are out, and the headlines are selling the same tired story: Mitchell Starc is back at No.1. Read the paper and you find that this 'return' rests on nine wickets in a single match, while the same release records an achievement from Marco Jansen that is far more durable than Starc's bowling crown—and which the headline has all but buried. I read the fifty-two points of the release twice, and a third time for the clauses nobody touches: the appendix of the ranking formula. What I found is the biggest cricketing-narrative error of the year.

First, what the ICC bulletin states precisely. In the third and final World Test Championship Test at Newlands, Cape Town, Starc took nine wickets and reclaimed the No.1 spot in the Test bowling rankings. Jansen took only three wickets in the same match and slipped to No.2. The same bulletin records that Jansen retained his lead in the Test all-rounder rankings and reached a career-high rating—meaning he fell one place in bowling but remains the world's No.1 all-rounder on the combined measure of bat and ball. Simon Harmer took six wickets in the second innings at Newlands, climbing nine places to seventh, one spot ahead of Kagiso Rabada. Three South African batsmen—Markram, Mulder and Rickelton—rose to eleventh, seventeenth and twenty-third respectively. From Australia, Cameron Green and Alex Carey moved to joint nineteenth.

On the ODI side, after the tri-series hosted by Pakistan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf and Fakhar Zaman climbed. In T20Is India won their series on New Zealand soil and Shreyas Iyer reached seventh. Despite losing that series, New Zealand players rose—Duffy by twenty-three places, and two others. Afghanistan's Azmatullah Omarzai sits third in the T20I all-rounder rankings. West Indies beat Bangladesh in Mirpur and Greaves, Warrican and Chase rose.

Now the part nobody read. The ICC rankings are not a simple average—they are a weighted formula combining opponent strength, match recency and format weighting. Reading 'No.1' without that is like reviewing a Bharatanatyam performance having only heard the ankle bells. Starc's return to No.1 is in fact a rollercoaster: having first taken the crown from Jasprit Bumrah, he had already lost it, Jansen took it from him, and now he has won it back on the strength of nine wickets. That is three different No.1s at the top in a short window. When the crown changes hands three times, that is not cricket's truth—that is the arithmetic of a narrow ranking gap.

Here is the multiplication the broadcast graphics never show. The points gap at the top of the Test bowling table is so small that a single match's burst flips the order. Starc's nine wickets at Cape Town are commendable, but they came on a seam-friendly pitch and possibly in a final Test of an already-decided series—the detail the bulletin itself does not state. The review also records a direct contradiction: on one hand Starc's nine wickets and Australia's position are referenced, on the other Harmer's six wickets are described as bowling South Africa to a series triumph. Both cannot be true as written. When the primary source tangles its own copy, the reader should cross-check its figures too—that is journalistic diligence, not distrust.

Now the angle the headline misdirected: the most valuable fact in this entire release is Jansen's career-high No.1 all-rounder ranking, not Starc's return to the bowling crown. A player who is No.2 in the bowling table and No.1 in the combined all-rounder table is rarer and more useful for team balance than a pure No.1 bowler. A Test all-rounder of that calibre comes along once in five or six years. The ranking formula recognises this 'dual value'; the headline sellers do not.

And from the same logic emerges another hidden signal: six South African players climbing across three different tables—three batsmen, two bowlers, three all-rounders—is not merely the product of a good tour. It is the signal of a Test unit that is no longer a one-man team. The headline ignored this South African depth entirely, because 'Starc back at No.1' is easier to sell.

But here I must challenge my own argument, because if I only ever show 'the system's game' that too is a prejudice. Suppose the ICC method is transparent and the points gap at the top is deliberately kept narrow—is that wrong? Perhaps not. A compressed top table keeps viewers engaged, makes every series a potential crown-changer, and gives players a living sense of competition. Those who say Starc is the world's best Test bowler are not wrong—the ranking's logic is with them. My objection is not to 'who is No.1' but to the sentence glued to that number and sold: 'the best in the world'. That sentence lies outside the ranking's scope.

Same with Harmer. A jump to seventh is significant, but a spinner's six wickets on a fourth-fifth day Newlands pitch is not proof of 'form'—it is proof of 'conditions'. The ranking formula does not weight pitch character or innings order. So Harmer's ranking may overstate his neutral-conditions standing just as a fast bowler's tally on a flat deck would. This is nowhere in the release.

Another point I have seen repeatedly over two decades and which people are forgetting in the fantasy-league era: the rise of Afridi, Rauf and Fakhar after Pakistan's home tri-series is a 'volume effect'—more matches at home against mixed-quality opposition add ranking points. Reading it as a form revolution is the mistake we make after every series. Similarly, New Zealand players rising despite losing to India proves that these tables count individual volume of contribution, not team results. A player from a losing side can climb—this teaches cricket fans how to read rankings properly.

And the biggest gap, which I call 'spreadsheet overreach': in all this analysis we are only looking at numbers. Starc's age and workload, Jansen's dual-role pressure, South Africa's home-heavy scheduling advantage—none of these is recorded in the ICC method. The spreadsheet did not lie, but the ranking sheet does not show the whole picture that forms on the field.

I read this bulletin as a warning, not good news. If in the next series Jansen produces another big all-rounder performance and Starc fails to take wickets on a flat pitch, the top will change again—and the same paper that wrote 'return' today will write 'Starc's decline'. The question is not who is the best Test bowler right now. The question is whether we will take the trouble to understand the difference between 'No.1' and 'best'—or wait for the next headline.