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Cricket PlayersVirat Kohli stays in 2nd spot, Australians climb in latest ICC Test rankings
Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin did not see any change while Steve Smith becomes sixth greatest Test batter of all-time in the latest ICC rankings.
Australia’s win over hosts India in the first of a four-Test series has reaped dividends for players of the visiting side.
In the latest ICC Test rankings, India continues to top the overall team ranking with 121 rating points while Australia is second with 109 points, followed by South Africa at 107 points.
Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin retains the top spot for Test bowlers with 878 points. Ashwin had taken seven wickets in the first test against Australia which was played in Pune.
However, the Australian players made big advances with Josh Hazlewood managing 860 points to tie Ravindra Jadeja for the position of the second best Test bowler.
BIGGEST GAINS
It was the Australian captain Steve Smith who benefitted the most in the rankings from his showing in Pune.
Smith continues to top the ICC rankings for best Test batsman but climbed to a career-high 939 points. He leads India captain Virat Kohli (873 points) and recently-announced England captain Joe Root (848 points).
Smith’s knock of 27 in his first innings and 109 in his second innings — for his 18th career Test century — helped him climb into sixth position in the all-time highest points tally for test batters.
He surprassed Garry Sobers, Viv Richards and Kumar Sangakkara, all of whom had career-high ranking points of 938.
He is currently behind first-placed Don Bradman (961 points), second-placed Len Hutton (945 points), tied third-placed Jack Hobbs and Ricky Ponting (both 942 points) and fifth-placed Peter May (941 points) in the all-time Test batters list.
Other stars of the Aussie win included Matt Renshaw, Steve O’Keefe and Mitchell Starc.
Starc (346 points) climbed to fourth in the Test allrounders ranking, which is still topped by Ashwin (447 points). Renshaw and O’Keefe recorded career best rankings in the Test batters and bowlers’ rankings respectively. 20-year-old opener Renshaw limbed 18 places into 34th spot after his knocks of 68 and 31 against India. O’Keefe’s career-best performance of 12 for 70 took him to 29 in the bowlers’ list.
