Sangakkara’s slide continues; Mendis on the march; few consolations for England; South Africa with six batsmen inside top 30
India’s Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh are on the charge in the latest Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings.
The duo are the big movers in the new listings thanks to their pivotal performances in India’s 170-run win in Galle which levels the three-match series with one game to go, in Colombo starting on Friday.
Opener Sehwag climbs 10 places to 11th in the chart following innings of 201 (his fifth score of 200 or more in Tests) and 50 and he is now the highest ranked India batsman.
Off-spinner Harbhajan rises seven spots, also to number 11, after taking 10-153, his fifth ten-wicket haul in this form of the game and his second against Sri Lanka.
Below Sehwag and inside the top 20 are team-mates Sachin Tendulkar (17th) and Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman (joint 18th). Sourav Ganguly is 26th but another big climber is Gautam Gambhir, up 28 spots to 49th in the listing.
Anil Kumble (ninth) remains India’s highest-ranked bowler but Zaheer Khan, in 18th, makes it a hat-trick in the top 20 for India. Further down the ladder are the absent trio of Irfan Pathan (26th), Sreesanth (33rd) and RP Singh (42nd) but Ishant Sharma has nudged into the top 50, up six places to 48th.
Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara, who started the series at the top of the batting table, is now fifth. He dropped one place after the first match at the Sinhalese Sports Club and has slipped a further three places after the match in Galle.
The left-hander remains his side’s top-ranked batsman but Mahela Jayawardena is now just one spot below him. The batting list is still headed by the West Indies’ Shivnarine Chanderpaul, although he is only narrowly clear of the Australia duo of Michael Hussey and Ricky Ponting and Mohammad Yousuf of Pakistan.
A consolation for Sri Lanka is that it still possesses the player at the top of the bowling ladder, spinner Muttiah Muralidaran, while mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis is now 39th in the table after just two Tests, having returned match figures of 10-209 in Galle.
South Africa, fresh from a series win over England with one match still to play, has two bowlers inside the top 10 of the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings with Dale Steyn – who missed the Edgbaston Test through injury – now third while veteran pacer Makhaya Ntini holds firm in sixth position.
Steyn drops one place because a player loses one per cent of his rating points for every match he misses. It means Stuart Clark of Australia is now Muralidaran’s nearest challenger.
In the batting list South Africa has three players inside the top 20 – Jacques Kallis in eighth spot, captain Graeme Smith (whose unbeaten 154 was the decisive innings of the third Test match, won by his side by five wickets) in 12th and Ashwell Prince lying in 15th.
Just outside that elite group the Proteas have three more players, AB de Villiers (22nd), Neil McKenzie (24th) and Hashim Amla (30th).
If England is looking for consolations after its series loss then they are thin on the ground.
Michael Vaughan, who resigned as captain on Sunday, has dropped one place to joint 37th position, alongside Ross Taylor of New Zealand.
Kevin Pietersen, who made 94 in his side’s second innings, rises one place to eighth, alongside Kallis, while Alistair Cook climbs one spot to enter the top 20.
Ian Bell, England’s third player in the top 20 batting list, is a non-mover in 16th but Andrew Strauss drops three places to 23rd and Paul Collingwood, who resigned as ODI captain, also on Sunday, rises two places to 25th spot after his second innings 135.
Ryan Sidebottom remains England’s highest ranked bowler in fifth position and Andrew Flintoff climbs three places to 16th. Monty Panesar slips two spots to 13th while James Anderson enters the top 20, up one place from the 21st position he held before the Edgbaston Test and now with a career-best tally of rating points.
Kallis still leads the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test all-rounders, clear of New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori, but Flintoff has leapfrogged Dwayne Bravo of the West Indies and now holds third place.
South Africa’s series win means it has safeguarded second place in the Reliance Mobile Test Championship table. However, if India can complete its comeback and take the series against Sri Lanka then it will ensure it maintains the pressure on Smith and his team.
Victory in the final match of the series will see Anil Kumble’s side rise to 115 rating points and if England wins the final match of its series against the Proteas it will mean the gap between South Africa and India will be just one point.
Australia is currently 23 rating points clear at the head of affairs.
Remaining matches in above series:
Sri Lanka v India – 8 – 12 August, third Test, P.Saravanamuttu Stadium, Colombo
England v South Africa – 7 – 11 August, fourth Test, The Brit Oval, London
Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen and bowlers (as of 4 August)
Batsmen
Rank +/- Player Team Points Avge HS Rating
1 ( - ) S.Chanderpaul WI 890! 49.08 890 v Aus at Bridgetown 2008
2 ( - ) Mike Hussey Aus 882 68.38 921 v WI at Kingston 2008
3= (+1) Ricky Ponting Aus 880 58.37 942 v Eng at Adelaide 2006
(+1) Mohammad YousufPak 880 55.49 933 v WI at Karachi 2006
5 (-3) K.C.Sangakkara SL 874 54.45 938 v Eng at Kandy 2007
6 ( - ) M.Jayawardena SL 844 52.41 847 v Ind at Colombo (SSC) 2008
7 ( - ) Matthew Hayden Aus 834 53.51 935 v Eng at Brisbane 2002
8= ( - ) Jacques Kallis SA 814 56.03 935 v NZ at Centurion 2007
(+1) Kevin Pietersen Eng 814 50.36 905 v WI at Headingley 2007
10 ( - ) Younis Khan Pak 799 49.14 856 v Eng at Headingley 2006
11 (+10) Virender Sehwag Ind 794 53.14 854 v SA at Kolkata 2004
12 ( - ) Graeme Smith SA 759! 49.69 759 v Eng at Edgbaston 2008
13 (-2) Michael Clarke Aus 723 47.06 761 v Ind at Melbourne 2007
14 ( - ) Andrew Symonds Aus 700* 44.65 718 v WI at Antigua 2008
15 (-2) Ashwell Prince SA 688 43.14 756 v Pak at Centurion 2007
16 ( - ) Ian Bell Eng 676 43.20 703 v SA at Lord's 2008
17 (-2) S.R.Tendulkar Ind 673 54.64 898 v Zim at Nagpur 2002
18= (+1) Rahul Dravid Ind 672 54.08 892 v Pak at Kolkata 2005
( - ) VVS Laxman Ind 672 43.48 753 v Aus at Sydney 2004
20 (+1) Alastair Cook Eng 664 42.53 707 v SL at Galle 2007
Bowlers
Rank +/- Player Team Points Avge HS Rating
1 ( - ) M.Muralidaran SL 899 21.90 920 v Ban at Kandy 2007
2 (+1) Stuart Clark Aus 863*! 21.46 863 v WI at Bridgetown 2008
3 (-1) Dale Steyn SA 855 22.51 897 v Ind at Ahmedabad 2008
4 ( - ) Brett Lee Aus 793 29.58 811 v WI at Antigua 2008
5 ( - ) Ryan Sidebottom Eng 745* 25.68 769 v SA at Lord's 2008
6 ( - ) Makhaya Ntini SA 735 28.36 863 v Ind at Durban 2006
7 ( - ) Chaminda Vaas SL 699 29.21 800 v Ind at Chennai 2005
8 ( - ) Shoaib Akhtar Pak 684 25.69 855 v NZ at Wellington 2003
9 ( - ) Anil Kumble Ind 670 29.22 859 v SL at Bangalore 1994
10 ( - ) Shane Bond NZ 668* 22.39 778 v WI at Auckland 2006
11 (+7) Harbhajan Singh Ind 644 30.79 765 v NZ at Wellington 2002
12 ( - ) Jerome Taylor WI 628*! 34.69 628 v Aus at Bridgetown 2008
13 (-2) Monty Panesar Eng 622 32.74 721 v WI at Chester-le-St 2007
14 (-1) Corey Collymore WI 621* 32.30 700 v Eng at Lord's 2007
15 (-1) Mohammad Asif Pak 619* 23.13 710 v SA at Cape Town 2007
16 (+3) Andrew Flintoff Eng 618 32.08 810 v Pak at Multan 2005
17 (-2) Danish Kaneria Pak 614 33.90 723 v Eng at Multan 2005
18 (-2) Zaheer Khan Ind 606 34.12 689 v Pak at Delhi 2007
19 (-3) Matthew Hoggard Eng 599 30.50 795 v SL at Edgbaston 2006
20 (+1) James Anderson Eng 597*! 34.97 597 v SA at Edgbaston 2008
All-rounders
Rank +/- Player Team Points HS Rating
1 ( - ) Jacques Kallis SA 473 616 v Pak at Durban 2002
2 ( - ) Daniel Vettori NZ 324 360 v Eng at Lord's 2008
3 (+1) Andrew Flintoff Eng 306 501 v Pak at Multan 2005
4 (-1) Dwayne Bravo WI 295/*! 295 v Aus at Bridgetown 2008
5 (+1) Jacob Oram NZ 279/* 289 v Eng at Lord's 2008
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