R Ashwin is No. 1 ranked bowler in ICC Test Rankings© AFP
India’s veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin took up the numero uno spot in ICC Rankings for Test bowlers, surpassing England pacer James Anderson. Ashwin, who bagged a total of 25 wickets in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, sits atop with 869 rating points while Anderson is second, 10 rating points behind the Indian off-spinner. Former India captain Virat Kohli also made big gains in the Test rankings for batters, jumping a total of seven places to find himself at the 13th spot in the charts.
While Ashwin has been an ever-consistent player for India in the whites, Kohli ended his 1205-day drought without a Test ton to reach the triple-digit score in the drawn Ahmedabad Test against Australia. He scored a whopping 186 runs in the first innings but unfortunately missed out on a coveted double-hundred.
Kohli is now not far behind teammates Rishabh Pant (ninth) and Rohit Sharma (10th) as the only Indian batters ahead of him on the Test batter rankings.
Axar Patel also had a memorable series, especially with the bat, as he moved up eight places to 44th on the list for batters and gained one place to find himself at the fourth spot overall on the list for all-rounders following an aggregating a whopping 264 runs over the four matches.
Ashwin and Jadeja were the chief orchestrators for India in the series, with the former taking 25 wickets and the latter 22. For some reason, however, Jadeja dropped a spot from 8th to 9th in the Test bowlers’ rankings.
There were promotions for Australian cricketers too in the latest rankings update. Openng batter Usman Khawaja gained two places to climb up to seventh spot on the Test batter rankings following a series-high 333 runs. All-rounder Cameron Green, who only featured in the Ahmedabad Test, jumped a total of 11 places to be placed 26th.
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