After beating Pakistan by eight wickets in the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) Test, Australia took over first place in the ICC World Test Championship 2023-25. The Pat Cummins-led team won two important ICC titles in 2023: the World Test Championship Final and the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup. In 2024, Australia continued to show how dominant they were.
In the New Year’s Test at the famous Sydney Cricket Ground, the hosts beat Pakistan by eight wickets. This gave them a 3-0 series win and put them at the top of the World Test Championship standings.
The team was ranked first in the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s Test Team Rankings after their 1-1 series tie in South Africa on Friday, January 5. India is now in second place, with 54.16 percentage points, behind Australia, which now has 56.25 percentage points. At the same time, Pakistan’s No.6 spot dropped a lot, from 45.83 before the SCG Test to 36.66 after it lost. The guests put up a good first-innings score of 313 after choosing to bat. Mohammad Rizwan (88), Agha Salman (53), and No. 9 Aamer Jamal (82), all of whom scored fifty, helped the cause. After that, Jamal’s bowling attack helped them get Australia out for 299 runs. Pakistan had a small lead over the hosts going into the second innings, with a 14-run lead.
But Pakistan’s second innings at the crease changed the game’s result in a big way. The Australian bowlers held them to 115 runs, with 33 runs made by Saim Ayub. Josh Hazlewood led the attack with 4/16, and Nathan Lyon, an experienced spinner, did a great job of backing him up (3/36).
On the fourth day, the hosts reached the goal in 25.5 overs, with Warner and Marnus Labuschagne hitting fiftys that won the game.
