Joe Root made his way back into the top three of the ICC men’s Test batting rankings following his 31st Test ton in the Ranchi Test against India.
Joe Root’s 122 in the first innings in the Ranchi Test match pushed him to third spot in the latest rankings, behind New Zealand’s Kane Williamson and Australia’s Steve Smith. Daryl Mitchell and Babar Azam both slid one place, but are still in the top five.
Among the other movements in the top ten, Dimuth Karunaratne gained one place to seventh, while Marnus Labuschagne jumped two places to eighth. Virat Kohli, currently on a break, slipped two places to ninth, as did Harry Brook, out of the Test series due to injury.
After losing in India, can England still qualify for the World Test Championship final?
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Indian youngsters shine
Yashasvi Jaiswal continued his ascent towards the top ten: he is now 12th on the chart, having already scored 655 runs at 93.57 in the first four Tests of the series. His U19 World Cup 2020 batchmate Dhruv Jurel has enjoyed a splendid start to Test cricket: Player of the Match in Ranchi, he vaulted 31 places to 69th.
For England, Zak Crawley made an entry into the top 20 for the first time, moving ten places up to 17th. He is currently England’s leading run-getter in the series. Jonny Bairstow moved up by three places to 25th, while Ollie Pope slid down by six to 29th. Ben Stokes, too, lost ten places, and is now 27th.
Anderson out of top ten
In the bowling rankings, James Anderson slipped out of the top ten. Kuldeep Yadav jumped ten places up to 32nd. Shoaib Bashir took a massive leap, jumping 38 spots to be in 80th place.
In the all-rounders’ ranking, Root moved up three places to the fourth spot, behind Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin and Shakib Al Hasan. In the same chart, Axar Patel and Ben Stokes dropped one position each to be fifth and seventh respectively.