DUBAI: Virat Kohli has achieved another personal milestone by becoming the seventh India batsman and first since Sachin Tendulkar in June 2011, to top the MRF Tyres ICC Player Rankings for Test Batsmen, which were released on Sunday morning following the conclusion of the Edgbaston Test.
According to ICC, Kohli scored 149 and 51 in India’s 31-run defeat and has gone up by 31 points, which have helped him to end Steve Smith’s 32-month reign as the top-ranked batsman and reach the top of the summit for the first time in his 67-Test career.
Kohli now leads Smith (who had held the top spot since December 2015) by five points but will have to maintain the form in the remaining four Tests to finish the series as the world’s highest-ranked batsman.
Tendulkar had joined South Africa’s Jacques Kallis in number-one position in January 2011 but had dropped to the second spot following the Jamaica Test in June 2011 after he had missed the three-Test series against the West Indies.
Apart from Kohli and Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Gautam Gambhir, Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag and Dilip Vengsarkar are the other India batsmen to have achieved number-one rankings during their careers.
However, at 934 points, Kohli has become India’s highest-ranked batsman, 14th overall, on the all-time tally of points. Kohli had entered the Edgbaston Test on 903 points, 13 points behind Gavaskar, and is now ahead of the ICC Cricket Hall of Famer by 18 points.
If Kohli can deliver another strong performance in the second Test at Lord’s, then he can break into the top-10 by leapfrogging Matthew Hayden, Kallis and AB de Villiers, whose highest points tally was 935 each. Donald Bradman (961) and Steve Smith (947) are the two batsmen sitting on top of this exclusive list.
Kohli, who powered India to the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup title in 2008 and then won the prestigious Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for ICC Cricketer of the Year in 2017, is the 76th player to top the Test batting rankings. He is also the number-one ranked ODI batsman, but is ranked 12thin T20Is, 220 points behind number-one ranked Aaron Finch of Australia.
England’s 20-year-old Sam Curran is another fascinating story from what was a nerve-wracking 1000th England men’s Test.
The left-handed all-rounder scored 24 and 63 with the bat, and claimed match figures of five for 92 with the ball, which not only earned him the player of the match award but significant gains in the latest rankings.
In the batting table, Curran has jumped from 152nd to 72nd, the bowling table has seen him rise 49 places to 62nd, while in the all-rounders’ category, he now sits in 37th position after jumping 58 places.
England’s wicketkeeper-batsman Jonny Bairstow is the other England player to improve his ranking. The Yorkshireman now shares 12th position with the West Indies’ Kraigg Brathwaite after moving up four places.
The batsmen to lose ground after the Edgbaston Test include Alistair Cook 17th (down by four places), Lokesh Rahul 19th (down by one place), Ajinkya Rahane 22nd (down by three places), Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan, who now share 25th position after slipping two and one spots, respectively, and Ben Stokes 33rd (down by five places).
In the bowlers’ table, Stuart Broad and Mohammed Shami are the two bowlers inside the top-20 who have headed in the opposite direction, while James Anderson has retained his top position but his lead over Kagiso Rabada has been reduced to two points.
Broad is now ranked 13th after falling one place, while Shami is in 19th spot after sliding two places.
Stokes has compensated for his double failure with the bat by taking six wickets in the Test, including three of India’s last four wickets. For this performance, he has been rewarded with a rise of four places, which has put him in 27th position.
India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has gained 14 points following his four for 62 and three for 59, which means he now trails South Africa’s fourth-ranked Vernon Philander by just one point, while Ishant Sharma has collected 19 points to move within 13 points of 25th-ranked team-mate Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
The Test player rankings will now be updated following the Lord’s Test, which begins on Thursday, 9 August.
MRF Tyres ICC Test Player Rankings (as on 5 August, following Edgbaston Test)
BATSMEN (top 20)
Rank (+/-) Player Team Points Avge Highest Rating
1 (+1) Virat Kohli Ind 934! 54.28 934 v Eng at Edgbaston 2018
2 (-1) Steve Smith Aus 929 61.37 947 v SA at Durban 2018
3 ( – ) Joe Root Eng 865 52.18 917 v Aus at Trent Bridge 2015
4 ( – ) Kane Williamson NZ 847 50.35 893 v Aus at Perth 2015
5 ( – ) David Warner Aus 820 48.20 880 v NZ at Perth 2015
6 ( – ) C. Pujara Ind 791 50.34 888 v SL at Nagpur 2017
7 ( – ) D. Karunaratne SL 754! 37.28 754 v SA at Colombo (SSC) 2018
8 ( – ) D. Chandimal SL 733 44.96 755 v Win at St Lucia 2018
9 ( – ) Dean Elgar SA 724 41.05 784 v Aus at Johannesburg 2018
10 ( – ) Aiden Markram SA 703* 47.27 759 v Aus at Johannesburg 2018
11 ( – ) Ross Taylor NZ 697 47.22 871 v Win at Hamilton 2013
12= ( – ) Kraigg Brathwaite Win 695 37.94 701 v Eng at Headingley 2017
(+4) Jonny Bairstow Eng 695 38.64 772 v SA at Old Trafford 2017
14 ( – ) Hashim Amla SA 673 47.23 907 v Pak at Abu Dhabi 2013
15 ( – ) Azhar Ali Pak 672 44.84 787 v Aus at Melbourne 2016
16 (+1) Faf du Plessis SA 665 42.33 734 v Ind at Centurion 2018
17 (-4) Alastair Cook Eng 658 45.36 874 v Ind at Kolkata 2012
18 (+2) Kusal Mendis SL 641 36.78 693 v Win at St Lucia 2018
19 (-1) Lokesh Rahul Ind 634 39.20 761 v SL at Pallekele 2017
20 (+1) Usman Khawaja Aus 633 42.00 747 v Pak at Sydney 2017
BOWLERS (top 20)
Rank (+/-) Player Team Points Avge Highest Rating
1 ( – ) James Anderson Eng 884 27.19 896 v Win at Lord’s 2017
2 ( – ) Kagiso Rabada SA 882 21.71 902 v Aus at Port Elizabeth 2018
3 ( – ) Ravindra Jadeja Ind 857 23.11 899 v Aus at Ranchi 2017
4 ( – ) Vernon Philander SA 826 21.54 912 v Ind at Johannesburg 2013
5 ( – ) R. Ashwin Ind 825 25.17 904 v Eng at Mumbai 2016
6 ( – ) Pat Cummins Aus 800*! 23.81 800 v SA at Johannesburg 2018
7 ( – ) Trent Boult NZ 795 27.84 825 v Eng at Lord’s 2015
8 ( – ) Rangana Herath SL 791 27.95 867 v Zim at Harare 2016
9 ( – ) Neil Wagner NZ 765 28.26 785 v Win at Wellington 2017
10 ( – ) Josh Hazlewood Aus 759 26.84 863 v Ind at Bengaluru 2017
11 ( – ) Shannon Gabriel Win 757! 29.57 757 v Ban at Jamaica 2018
12 (+1) Jason Holder Win 731*! 29.35 731 v Ban at Jamaica 2018
13 (-1) Stuart Broad Eng 730 28.95 880 v SA at Johannesburg 2016
14= ( – ) Tim Southee NZ 720 30.82 799 v Win at Jamaica 2014
( – ) Mitchell Starc Aus 720 28.17 805 v SA at Durban 2018
16 ( – ) Nathan Lyon Aus 710 32.21 774 v Eng at Adelaide 2017
17 (+1) Keshav Maharaj SA 692* 27.65 695 v Zim at Port Elizabeth 2017
18 (+1) Yasir Shah Pak 683 29.44 878 v Eng at Lord’s 2016
19 (-2) M. Shami Ind 680 29.04 703 v SA at Johannesburg 2018
20 ( – ) Kemar Roach Win 667 28.31 774 v SA at Centurion 2014
ALL-ROUNDERS (top five)
Rank (+/-) Player Team Points Highest Rating
1 ( – ) Shakib Al Hasan Ban 420 489 v Aus at Mirpur 2017
2 ( – ) Ravindra Jadeja Ind 385 438 v SL at Colombo (SSC) 2017
3 ( – ) Vernon Philander SA 370 379 v SL at Galle 2018
4 ( – ) R. Ashwin Ind 359 493 v Eng at Mohali 2016
5 ( – ) Jason Holder Win 354/* 355 v Ban at Jamaica 2018
