After scoring his 50th century in international cricket, Indian skipper Virat Kohli has moved up in the ICC Test batting rankings. Kohli has now taken over David Warner and moved to the 5th position in the rankings.
Kohli was not the only one who gained a spot. Bhuvneshwar Kumar too moved to his career-best rankings in ICC Test bowler rankings. Bhuvneshwar jumped eight places as he took 8 wickets in the first Test against Sri Lanka. Mohammed Shami too got rewarded for his fiery spells on Day 4 and 5 of the Test. Shami took 6 wickets in the match which helped him to move up one slot to the 18th position. Shikhar Dhawan too jumped two spots and got the 28th position in the batsman rankings.
While four Indian players improved their rankings, all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja slipped one spot in the bowling rankings. Before the Kolkata Test, he was ranked 2nd and was looking to regain the top spot. Due to the pitch’s nature, Jadeja bowled just one over per innings which did not support his case.
The all-rounder slipped to third in bowling rankings. In the all-rounder rankings, he did not lose his spot but lost 20 rating points which might hurt his chances to dethrone Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan.
Sri Lankan players too benefited after the first Test. Dilruwan Perera moved up two spots to get to 22nd position. The off-spinner took 3 wickets in the Test on a wicket that helped seamers.
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Niroshan Dickwella may have been at the receiving end of the criticism for his efforts of wasting time in the last session of the Kolkata Test, but, his innings of 35 and 38 in respective innings might have done the trick for him. The wicketkeeper-batsman moved three slots to get to the 37th position in rankings.
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Here are the current ICC batting rankings –
Screengrab: ICC Official website
Nevertheless, India retain the top spot in ICC Test rankings and are still leading by a big margin whereas Sri Lanka struggle at 6th position.
