Centuries in consecutive ODIs have helped the English batting stalwart Joe Root to climb up to the second position in the latest MRF Tyres ICC ODI rankings. The Indian skipper Virat Kohli has maintained his numero uno position in the rankings, while the chinaman Kuldeep Yadav has reached the top-10 ranking for the first time.
In the three-match ODI series, England sealed the win by a 2-1 margin with a dominating win at Headingley on Wednesday. After the series, Root has surpassed Babar Azam (Pakistan), Rohit Sharma (India), David Warner (Australia) and Ross Taylor (New Zealand) to a career-high second position.
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Root registered scores of 3, 113* and 100*, which have earned him 34 points and have now put him 93 points behind the Indian skipper. He had previously reached fourth in the batting rankings in August 2016 and is now just one point below his career-best points tally of 819, which he had achieved against Australia earlier this year in Brisbane.
Kohli has also strengthened his position at the top of the rankings by registering scores like 75, 45 and 71. Although he has earned just two points, these are enough to lift him to career-high 911 points, which are sixth best in the list of all-time points and the highest since Australia’s Dean Jones tally of 918 points in March 1991.
Jason Roy and Eoin Morgan are the other batsmen, who have witnessed a rise in their rankings. Roy has moved up one place to 19th, while Morgan is now in the 22nd spot after leap-frogging two batsmen.
In the bowlers’ list, Kuldeep reached the sixth position with the help of his nine wickets in the series which also includes 6-25 at Trent Bridge. He is the third India bowler to feature in the top-10 after number-one ranked Jasprit Bumrah and Yuzvendra Chahal (10th). Kuldeep is also among the other four spinners are Rashid Khan (second), Imran Tahir (seventh), Adil Rashid (eighth) and Chahal in top-10 rankings.
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Even the English pace trio of Liam Plunkett, Mark Wood, and David Willey has witnessed a rise. Plunkett has gained one place and is now 20th, Wood is on a career-high 26th ranking after rising two places and Willey has jumped 11 places to claim the 31st position.
There is no change in the top five all-rounders, with Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan leading the charts.
Meanwhile, in the MRF Tyres ICC ODI Team Rankings, England has maintained its numero uno position with 127 points under their belt after gaining one point, while India has dropped one point to finish on 121 points. This means the four-point pre-series gap has now extended to six points.
