South Africa threaten Australia's No 1 rankingSee http://www.icc-cricket.com/icc/odi/

Does that mean if they win tomorrow and Australia slip up in any one of their 3 upcoming games with NZ....SA we'll be going into the World Cup as the number one ranked team?!?

Gee where's that fella that said that India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Australia are the only teams that could possibly win the WC.

Nevamind the West Indies who I suspect could easily come right on home soil.

Ranking do not mean anything- it is form that counts.

thats rite...but looking at the numbers at the very moment, rank should be a fair measure of current form (that is in the ODI format at least).

Actually,Australia have to slip up in two of the matches,not one.

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Karthik Venkatesan

When you take into account the cut-throat nature of ODI's and the inevitable changes in player personnel, it is surprising Australia have been at the top of the rankings for so long.

South African might well go to the top at some stage. I remember when they took the top ranking off Australia in tests a few years ago - a week before Australia arrived in South Africa and whitewashed them 3-0.

Who knows what will happen in ODI's. One moment a team looks invincible only to suddenly come apart and cop some floggings.

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On talent alone, South Africa are already No:1 ODI cricket team in the world, whatever the points say. Their problem - and Australians asset - is confidence. Despite now being back in the international cricketing scene for over 15 years, I don't think SA have completely shaken off the effects of those decades of isolation and obscurity. The situation is not helped by their current 'quota' system. Take someone like Herschelle Gibbs for example; with all that experience behind him, he sometimes looks and acts like a victim of high school bullying. Players from England, Australia, Sri Lanka etc will be aware of such weaknesses and exploit them to the full where necessary.

That overall shortage of confidence is one reason why Graeme Smith - despite all his noisy gesticulations on the field - is the ideal captian for SA irrespective of his own batting form. He brings that much needed gee-up to a very talented but vunerable team. I feel that South Africa have it in them (as they have had in the past before shooting themselves in the foot) to win the 2007 World Cup. It may sound corny, but I think every one of them should go to the Caribbean with the number '438' on the sleeve of their tops as a reminder of what the team can rise up to with the right sort of inspiration.