Two Notebooks, One Truth: Jansen's Double No.1 and Abhishek Sharma's Return

When Marco Jansen bowled Australia out for 99 at St George's Park in Gqeberha, the ground erupted for a bowler. In my notebook, two questions were being written. First, was that 5/33 spell the product of session-by-session dominance or a single collapse? Second, is the ICC's latest rankings update in a hurry to turn that collapse into a permanent crown? Jansen's 876 points and the No.1 Test bowling spot, plus No.1 among all-rounders — that double crown arrived in the same week the Cape Town Test was still in progress and Mitchell Starc had already taken six wickets. I have taken this information not from on-ground reporting but from the official ICC rankings pages and ESPNcricinfo updates — which is to say, this is a snapshot of a rolling formula, not a final verdict.

After watching VVS Laxman's 281 at Eden Gardens in March 2026, I started keeping two notebooks — one for the score, one for sound, faces and the mood in the stands. Twenty-five years later, reading this rankings roundup from Brisbane, that second notebook opens. Because the first page of the rankings says Jansen is No.1, but the second page asks: on what surface, in what role, and on how large a sample? The angle a left-arm seamer creates against right-handers on seam-friendly South African pitches is his real strength — but that same strength begs for water on Asian pitches, and this roundup offers no home-away split.

This rankings update conflates three separate bilateral series into one frame: South Africa-Australia Tests, India-New Zealand T20Is, and an ODI tri-series in Pakistan. There is no competitive connection between them; the only unifying thread is the ICC update cycle. Readers extracting a "momentum" narrative across these items will commit a format-and-context error. I have written them on separate pages of my notebook, because Test cricket's 10 wickets do not connect to a T20I 113, nor does either explain the other.

Jansen's profile falls into a clear category for me: a home-conditions, lower-order, high-leverage all-rounder — not a balanced top-six all-rounder. Ten wickets and 146 runs in two Tests, including 85 at No.8, is genuine match-winning output. But those batting returns are structurally lower-leverage — the role a No.6 all-rounder plays is different from a No.8's. The ICC all-rounder ranking formula weighs both on the same scale, and that is the formula's limitation. My question is not whether Jansen is No.1 — the numbers say he is in this update — but whether that No.1 proves the role he actually plays in international cricket.

Abhishek Sharma's story is the inverse, and perhaps the most notable signal in this update. Scores of 29 and 27 in the first two T20Is, then 113 off 38 balls — a strike rate of roughly 297. That is the signature of an ultra-high-strike-rate, high-variance batter. The ranking system rewards the outlier innings; team-selection logic cannot. When he made 29 and 27, opposing bowlers had likely adjusted to pace-off and wide-yorker lines outside the powerplay — a technical vulnerability had been exposed. Then the 113 came in the same high-risk approach, and it came off once. A return to No.1 does not mean the vulnerability is fixed; it may still be there, waiting to be caught next time.

The T20I No.1 spot changed hands twice in a short window and once through injury. Ishan Kishan took it in July, was injured after one match, and Abhishek returned. A ranking that flips on one injury absence tells us very little about a player's lasting superiority. It is a signal about the metric's instability, not about talent's stability. I remember tracking every bid in a ledger at the 2026 IPL auction and learning then that price and value are not the same thing. Rankings teach the same lesson: points and performance are separate accounts.

Harry Brook's case is the cleanest illustration of format specialisation in this update. A 202 in an ODI — which touches the edge of a national record for England — and yet only eighth in ODI batting, while he is No.1 in Test batting. It shows his ODI sample is too small for the ranking to catch up with his output. This mismatch between commercial prominence and ranking position is common for a player whom franchise cricket and media made a star before the rankings did.

Temba Bavuma's No.2 Test batting ranking also revolves around one innings — 179 at Gqeberha, Player of the Match. But no series aggregate is given in this roundup, so do not treat it as proof of sustained output. The real concern for South Africa is that their entire top-of-table rankings footprint is concentrated in two individuals — Jansen (bowling and all-rounder) and Bavuma (batting). That concentration is fragility, not strength. A team whose rankings presence rests on two players can collapse on injury or a form dip. I suspect South Africa's selection pipeline is not producing a broad top-10 cohort, and a single No.1 ranking conceals that depth gap.

For India, the biggest signal in this update is Jadeja losing the Test all-rounder No.1 after holding it for more than four years. This is not merely a one-place drop; it is the erosion of a structural advantage India built its team balance around: a spinner who bats in the top seven and bowls a full quota. Replacing that profile is not a like-for-like swap. India has No.1 in white-ball batting (Abhishek in T20Is, Gill in ODIs), but the top Test all-rounder chair is empty — an asymmetry that suggests where investment has tilted in the recent cycle.

For Australia, Starc dropping one place is noise, not decline. The same Starc was taking six wickets in the Cape Town Test — a direct contradiction between ranking movement and on-field evidence. It is a textbook example of rankings lagging performance, and that is my central objection: rankings are a rolling formula, not a verdict on performance. Jansen's double No.1 was published in the same week the Cape Town Test was in progress and Starc was directly challenging his chair. The writer himself concedes the top spot "may change again" — meaning the headline's claim may already have been stale at publication.

Bangladesh's profile is the quietest-speaking part of this update. Mehidy Hasan Miraz is third among Test all-rounders, but no specialist is inside the top 10 in any format. Best Test batter 18th, best Test bowler 18th, best ODI 24th, best T20I 23rd and eighth. This is not a talent problem; it is a ceiling problem — a side producing contributors, not match-defining specialists. And Miraz appearing in three separate categories shows a handful of players carrying disproportionate load, an injury-exposure pattern.

I am writing this from Brisbane, and that distance is a method for me, not virtual presence. I have heard about the mood of the Gqeberha and Cape Town pitches, not seen it — so what I infer, I will call inference. But one thing is clear even from a distance: ICC rankings have become a media product in recent years, needing a new story with every update. Jansen's double No.1 is a good story. The question is whether it will still be true next month, and whether its truth tells us anything about the real strength structure of Test cricket or only about the arithmetic of a formula.

Today's page in my second notebook ends on one sentence: rankings remember what can be counted and forget what matters — which pitch, against whom, and under what pressure. Jansen is No.1 right now. But the next time he bowls on an Asian pitch, that number will not be with him.