A simple (but naive, as I shall explain) way to find the top-performing teams of 2008 would be to find the success percentage of each team in 2008. Give a point for a win, half a point for a draw and none for a loss and then divide the total by the number of Tests. Here is what you would get:

Team            Won    Draw   Lost     Success %age
South Africa     11       2      2              80%
Sri Lanka         4       0      2              67%
India             6       5      4              57%
England           5       3      4              54%
Australia         5       4      5              50%
New Zealand       4       4      6              43%
West Indies       1       3      5              28%
Bangladesh        0       1      8               6%

Pakistan is missing from the table having played no Tests this year, partly because of their domestic problems. Not many surprises in the table. South Africa had a great year, winning in Australia and England, and drawing in Sri Lanka India. Australia with their defeats against India and South Africa drop to the middle of the table. Sri Lanka has a higher ranking, partly because they didn’t play very many Tests.

Now, let’s see what happens to the chart if we update the statistics by removing all the Tests that Bangladesh played.

Team            Won    Draw   Lost     Success %age
South Africa      7       2      2              73%
Sri Lanka         3       0      2              60%
India             6       5      4              57%
England           5       3      4              54%
Australia         5       4      5              50%
West Indies       1       3      5              28%
New Zealand       1       3      6              25%

Removing those matches makes a tremendous difference. Although South Africa is still comfortable ahead, the other teams are quite close together. New Zealand and West Indies are about equal, a fact re-affirmed by the ultimate stalemate series that they are now playing. Let us eliminate them both and see what we get

Team            Won    Draw   Lost     Success %age
South Africa      5       2      2              67%
Sri Lanka         2       0      1              67%
India             6       5      4              57%
England           1       2      3              33%
Australia         1       3      5              28%

South Africa’s success rate comes down to 67%, which is still remarkable – the only team that they didn’t play in this list against was Sri Lanka. England won the last Test of the dead rubber against SA, but they did have some good moments against India, so let’s call that a wash. Considering that Bangladesh got to play 9 Tests, Sri Lanka being reduced to playing just 3 against a top-tier team (winning 2-1 against India) is pitiful. We don’t have enough data to evaluate them properly. India did well, except in Sri Lanka, and lost an opportunity against England. Australia’s year was terrible. If it weren’t for the controversial Sydney Test win, they would have nothing to show for the entire year.

The top series to watch out for next year are the remaining South Africa-Australia matches (3 of them back in South Africa), the Ashes and perhaps a Sri Lankan tour of Pakistan. Next year would also be a good time for India to turn around its bad fortunes in New Zealand.