вы ищете operator.itemgetter
>>> from operator import itemgetter, attrgetter
>>> sorted(student_tuples, key=itemgetter(2))
[('dave', 'B', 10), ('jane', 'B', 12), ('john', 'A', 15)]
>>> sorted(student_objects, key=attrgetter('age'))
[('dave', 'B', 10), ('jane', 'B', 12), ('john', 'A', 15)]
т.е.
In [7]: a
Out[7]: [[5, 2], [4, 1], [3, 6]]
In [8]: sorted(a, key=operator.itemgetter(0))
Out[8]: [[3, 6], [4, 1], [5, 2]]