Nathan Lyon, David Warner rise in ICC Test Rankings after series draw vs Bangladesh
Nathan Lyon breaks into the top 10 of the ICC bowlers rankings for the first time in Test career as David Warner moves up to the fifth spot in the batsmen rankings.
A superlative bowling performance in the recently concluded Test series between Australia and Bangladesh has resulted in Nathan Lyon entering the top 10 in the bowlers rankings of the International Cricket Council (ICC) for the first time in his career.
Nathan Lyon, already the most successful off-spinner in Australia’s cricket history, is now placed at the eighth spot in the ICC Rankings for bowlers in Test cricket.
His match figures of 13/154 in the second Test were also the best by any Australian bowler in Asia, bettering the record of 12 for 70 registered by Steven O’ Keefe during the Pune Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2017 against India earlier this year.
Lyon 22 wickets in the series is the joint second-most number of wickets taken by a bowler in a two-Test series, one behind the record (23 wickets) which is held by Rangana Herath.
David Warner, who smacked two consecutive Test centuries in the series also rose up in the ICC Rankings. Warner is now at the fifth spot after scoring 112 at Mirpur and 123 at Chittagong.
The Australia vice-captain was finally able to put behind the horrors of the past while batting in Asia with the two centuries.
Australia were made to work really hard for the win at Chittagong and had to level up the series, as Bangladesh — an extremely strong outfit in home conditions — had clinched their first-ever victory against the Aussies in the first Test at Mirpur.
The draw in the two-Test affair, however, did save Australia from the ignominy of falling to their worst rankings in 29 years according to cricket.com.au. If Australia lost the Test series, they would have slipped to the sixth spot.