After playing just a solitary Test match in 2019, Ravichandran Ashwin is back in the top ten ranks of bowlers in Test cricket. His match haul of eight wickets followed by him equalling Muttiah Muralitharan as the fastest to 350 Test wickets saw him rise up the ranks.
Meanwhile, India’s brand new Test opener, Rohit Sharma, who hit centuries in either innings at Visakhapatnam, has gone up to a career-high 17th rank, a straight jump from the 36th position in the ICC Test rankings.
Rohit hit a record 13 sixes in the Test match and firmly established himself at the top of the batting order for India. Mayank Agarwal, his partner, also cemented down his place after a very ordinary series in the West Indies.
Mayank rose from the 63rd rank to the 25th rank after his double hundred at Vizag, a knock that showed why his domestic grind has prepared him for making those big hundreds in International cricket.
Virat Kohli, has meanwhile, dropped points again and the gap with Steven Smith has widened. With Kohli’s point dropping below 900, Smith now has a clear 38-point advantage over the Indian skipper. The other batsman to drop points was Ajinkya Rahane who dropped down to tenth in ICC rankings, a three-place dip.
Mohammed Shami, after his second innings performance, jumped to the 16th rank with a career-high 710 points.
Quinton de Kock, meanwhile, broke into the top ten of the rankings and is now seventh-placed. He jumps above Faf du Plessis and Aiden Markram as the highest-ranked South African in the Test batting rankings. Despite his 160, Dean Elgar only went up by five positions and is now 14th ranked in the ratings.
In the all-rounder’s rankings, Ashwin made it back into the top five while Ravindra Jadeja has moved behind Jason Holder into the second position.