The Proteas used to be 8th in the rankings before the start of the two SL tests and the rankings now are as follows:-
1 New Zealand - 118 points
2 Australia - 116 points
3 India - 114 points
4 England - 106 points
5 South Africa - 96 points
6 SriLanka - 86 pointa
7 Pakistan - 82 points
8 West Indies - 77 points
9 Afghanistan - 57 points
10 BanglaDesh - 55 points
What is really disturbing is that in the test world series introduced by the ICC in 2019 and being played in the period up to 2023 South Africa thus far played in 9 tests and won only 3 - losing in 6 tests,
South Africa is also ranked
* 5th in ODI's;and
* 5th on T20I's
In all cases the so-called experienced batsmen let down the team badly over an extended period and they now suddenly made runs against SL who had a poor and injury-riddled bowling component in their team,