A downward spiral for team India?

Rankings tell us about the performance of a team over the past 2-3 years, not just this week. That's how it should be.

Having said that, there are always questions about ranking when the #1 keeps failing in the events that matter the most (e.g., Wozniacki).

Rankings tell us about the performance of a team over the past 2-3 years, not just this week. That's how it should be.

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I disagree.
Take the Aussies. They were still top of the rankings when we all knew that their time had gone. It's a little premature to say this about India but they look anything but a number one side.
Best to watch and make a judgement IMO.

In the case of Australia, when they began losing, we did not know for sure if their failures were temporary or how low they could fall. The rankings system is leaving that benefit of doubt in favour of the ranked team that they might quickly recover.

That's how rankings are in most sports. They are usually not on the basis of a team's form in the past two weeks.

Tiger Woods was not playing particularly well in 2003-4. He had no majors in 2002-5. In 2004, he won only one tournament. In 2003-4, Singh was the best player. But, it wasn't until Sep 2004 that Tiger lost his #1 ranking to Singh. For a year prior to that most would have accepted that he was not the best player in the world.

Del-mar are you sure those dates are correct? I'm sure at the open they were saying 2003 was a great year for Tiger.

Correct 2003 and 2004 were bad years for him.

Luke Donald and Lee Westwood are the current #1 and #2 ranked players in the world. Neither has a won a major yet. In fact, Donald had only one top-10 finish in the last 7 majors. You might then ask how the hell did they get there.

I think the ranking system in cricket is generally a better one that it is in golf.

Aren't golf rankings based on money, if cricket rankings followed suit India would be permanently number one.

No, golf world rankings are not based on money. Every tournament has a certain number of points depending on the strength of the field.

There is also a list of top players by money earnings.

For example, Lee Westwood is ahead of Rory McElroy in world ranking, but Rory has made more money than Lee.

Del Mar
In short, rankings are not always accurate