England’s premier fast bowler James Anderson’s nine wickets in the Lord’s Test against India has earned him 19 points which have also helped him to breach the 900-point barrier in the ICC ICC Test bowler’s rankings. He has now become the first English bowler to do so since Ian Botham in 1980.
Anderson ran through the Indian batting line-up in the 2nd Test of the 5-match series, as he finished the game with the figures of 9/63. The hosts dismissed the visitors for meager scores of 107 and 130 in the first and second innings of the Test match respectively. Jimmy’s performance helped England to beat India by an innings and 159 runs. Now, he is standing at the numero uno position in the MRF Tyres ICC Rankings for Test bowlers with 903 rating points, with South Africa’s Kagiso Rabada close on his heels at No.2 with 882 points.
England’s all-rounder Chris Woakes also took a huge leap in the rankings charts in all departments. His maiden Test century – a 177-ball 137* – helped England recover from 131/5 and post a lead of 289. It earned him the Player of the Match award. Woakes also registered the spells of 2/19 and 2/24, which helped him jump five spots in the rankings for all-rounders – he is now in the top 10, ranked No.7. He also made a giant leap of 34 places in the rankings for batsmen, and now sits at No.50, with a career-high 496 points. Among the bowlers, he rose three places to No.32.
Jonny Bairstow was another English cricketer to witness huge leap in the latest rankings, as he entered the top 10 among batsmen with a jump of three places. However, in the Indian team, there are a few slip-ups. For starters, Virat Kohli’s stay at the top of the batsmen’s rankings turned out to be a brief one.
Last week, Kohli became the first Indian to become the No.1-ranked Test batsman since Sachin Tendulkar in 2011, but his scores of 23 and 17 at Lord’s made im loose 15 points. He is now back at No.2 with 919 points, behind Steve Smith, who leads the charts with 929 despite not being involved in any action. Murali Vijay slipped eight places to No.33 after being dismissed for a duck pair at Lord’s. Dinesh Karthik fell 18 places and is now ranked No.195 after totalling just one run across two innings at Lord’s.
Surprisingly, for India, a couple of players made decent gains. Ravichandran Ashwin’s stock as a batsman rose after scores of 29 and 33* – he jumped 10 places to No.57 in the batting charts, and is now the No.3-ranked player among all-rounders after moving up by one place. Hardik Pandya jumped 18 places in the all-rounders’ charts, and is now ranked No.44 – he returned 3/66 and resisted the relentless English attack during knocks of 11 and 26.
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Hardik also took a jump of 25 places among the batsmen, and he is now ranked No.74 in the world.
