England’s ace batsman Joe Root has recaptured the top spot in the ICC Men’s Test Batting Rankings after losing it to fellow Yorkshire player Harry Brook, while Scott Boland has set a career high as five Australian bowlers are now in the top ten.
Joe Root begins his eighth tenure at the top with scores of 104 and 40 in the third Test of the five-match ICC World Test Championship (WTC) series against India at Lord’s, which the home team won by 22 runs to take a 2-1 lead. He is 34 years old, making him the oldest No. 1 Test hitter since the 37-year-old Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara in December 2014.
Changes in top five of Test batting rankings
According to the most recent weekly update, which takes into account performances in the Lord’s Test and the Kingston Test between the West Indies and Australia, which the visiting team won by 176 runs to complete a 3-0 WTC series win, Brook has also fallen behind Kane Williamson to third place, while Steve Smith has surpassed Yashasvi Jaiswal to fourth place.
All-rounder Cameron Green of Australia moved up 16 spots to joint-29th place after getting 46 and 42 in a low-scoring game. All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja of India moved up five spots to 34th place with his heroic 61 not out after scoring 72 in the first innings. K.L. Rahul is one spot behind him in 35th place, having also moved up five spots with scores of 100 and 39.
Shubman Gill of India has dropped three places to ninth in the batting rankings, but England skipper Ben Stokes’ Player of the Match performance of 77 runs and five wickets in the match has moved him up two places to 42nd among hitters and one space to 45th among bowlers.
Five Australians in top 10 of Test bowling rankings
The top five bowlers are still in place, with Jasprit Bumrah holding a 50-point lead over Kagiso Rabada thanks to his seven wickets at Lord’s. But with five Australians now in the top 10, Boland’s three wickets in each inning—including a hat-trick in the second—have moved him up six spots to a career-best sixth place.
Bolland joins his four fellow countrymen Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, and Mitchell Starc in the top 10, with his 62 Test cricket wickets coming at a mere 16.53 apiece, with only ICC Hall of Famers George Lohmann and Sydney Barnes taking wickets at a higher average. Since 1958, when England had six bowlers in the top 12, no such dominance has been witnessed.
Washington Sundar breaks into Top 50 among Test bowlers
West Indies, who lost all ten wickets in the second match in the record-low score of 27 in the second innings, found a sparring partner in the bowling list when Shamar Joseph picked up eight wickets in the match to scale a new career-high mark of 14th position, Alzarri Joseph (up two places to 29th) and Justin Greaves (up 15 places to 65th) also climbing up the ranks.
Indian all-rounder Washington Sundar is also another to benefit in the bowling charts with his four second-innings scalps pushing him up 12 places to No.46.
Men’s T20I Player Rankings
Sri Lankan batsman Kusal Mendis (up three spots to 15th) and Bangladeshi batsman Parvez Hossain Emon (up 12 spots to 85th) have advanced in the T20I rankings, while bowlers Nuwan Thushara (up nine spots to 16th) and Rishad Hossain (up 12 spots to 17th) have advanced.
