The No.1 Churn: Starc's Crown, Jansen's Real Star, and the Untold Story of ICC Rankings

Some things are decided not on the field, but in a release that follows. Kit bags lay outside the dressing room at Kingsmead, and from inside came the slow, tired clatter of studs, when the latest ICC rankings release arrived on my phone. Mitchell Starc's name was back at No.1 in Test bowling. I looked at it twice, then closed the screen. The next morning, at a tea stall in Hyderabad, the front page carried the same story — 'Starc is world No.1 again'. Nobody was asking that this crown had changed hands three times in four months. Those who read scorecards daily know that when a single position churns this fast, the question isn't about the man but about the system selling him as 'the best'. Cricket rankings are a strange thing — mathematics that are the ICC marketing department's best friend and journalism's biggest trap. I have been reading scorecards since 2026, and I have watched a single big number slowly eat the story. The release that came on Wednesday was a mashup of three separate tables: some from T20s played in New Zealand, some from a tri-series in Pakistan, and some from that Test which ended on a pitch that becomes a spinner's friend by day four. Starc's nine wickets, Jansen's three, a cluster of South Africans climbing — all arrived in one release and were squeezed into one headline. The trouble starts here. The swap between Starc and Marco Jansen is not a story of any skill gap. In the numbers I saw from this series, Starc's nine wickets in one match stood against Jansen's three. What the ranking formula does is simple: count wickets, weight by opposition strength, give recent matches more importance. This formula does not see the ball that turned on day four, nor the pitch that was a fast bowler's heaven on day two. So when a fast bowler with nine wickets in a match reaches No.1, he is not 'the best in the world' but 'this week's heaviest scorer'. That is the difference that gets erased in media headlines. But there is one thing in this whole release that nobody read properly. Jansen lost the No.1 bowling ranking, but he held on to a career-high in the all-rounder table. This is the detail you need to open the table at 1 a.m. to read. A player who is No.2 in bowling and No.1 as an all-rounder — in Test cricket this combination is rarer and more valuable than any single-skill bowler. In terms of team balance, Jansen's fifty cushions that three-wicket match. The logic of the rankings is exactly this — the all-rounder table is an account where both bat and ball make entries, and that entry keeps Jansen in a club very few reach. Now to Simon Harmer. Six wickets in the second innings at Newlands — anyone seeing that number would say a spinner has emerged. But I know that pitch. By day four or five, the Newlands surface is to a spinner what day three is to a fast bowler. The rankings have no column for this. They don't record which innings the wickets fell in, nor how tired the batters were. So Harmer climbed nine places to seventh, but that rise is not the true measure of his bowling — it is the reward of the surface he got that day. I would say the same of all the jumps that came from a single match — a batter rising twenty-five places, a fast bowler climbing twenty-three. These are the stirrings of a low-base table, not a revolution in form. I remember, after that final at The Oval in June 2026, I wrote 1,200 words and the desk cut it to 450. That night I realised the story isn't what's in the scorecard, but what sits outside the dressing room afterwards. The same applies to rankings. Holding an unsourced line for three weeks is my habit, and here is a line I cannot hold: there is a contradiction in this whole release. On one hand, Harmer's six wickets are described as 'South Africa's series win'; on the other, Starc's nine wickets and Australia's victory are mentioned. Both cannot be true at once. This is not proof of any conspiracy — it is carelessness in a press release. But when the source itself is tangled within, I will not call the story built on it 'truth'. I will call it 'verification pending' and move on. South Africa's Test team is the biggest winner of this release, but that win is invisible. Harmer, Jansen, Mulder, Markram, Rickelton — five names climbing in different tables. This is not the sign of one star but of a whole unit maturing. I was sitting inside the Dubai bubble in 2026, when 60 matches happened in 52 days and the stands were empty. That was when I learned that a team's strength isn't in the scorecard but in who bats first at nets, who ices a knee, and who leaves early — these small things tell you. Those signals are now arriving for South Africa. The surge of Pakistan's ODI players says something else that the average reader will miss. Playing many matches in a home or neutral tri-series means many ranking points. This is not proof of form; it is the calendar's reward. And New Zealand's players climbing despite losing the series to India shows that this table counts individual contribution, not team results. A player from a losing side can climb too — this is rarely written, and it is the most honest truth of the rankings. I want to pause here and write the thing that always gets left out. The ranking formula does not measure a player's greatness; it measures his recent productivity — and even that without saying on which pitch, in which weather, against which opposition that productivity came. Until the ICC makes its method transparent, every 'No.1' is an incomplete sentence. The media completes it, and we take it as truth. For Starc, this crown is real but fragile. In August he first took this spot by ending Bumrah's reign, then lost it, then found it again. At the back end of a fast bowler's career, this surge is the reward of experience, not a return of pace. For Jansen, this week is inverted — down in bowling, up as an all-rounder. That is his true identity, and the least-written fact of this whole release. I have written a line in my notebook that I will carry into the 2026 World Cup: the number on the contract is never the number that matters. The same is true of rankings. The number making headlines today will change tomorrow. The real question is: when this crown changes hands again next series, will we make that change the news, or the question hidden behind it — how do we measure 'the best'?