Rishabh Pant re-enters Test batting rank at No. 6 after Chennai century

After the Test matches in Chennai and Galle, Rohit Sharma has fallen out of the top spot, while Rishabh Pant has returned to the top of the ICC Test batting rankings at No. 6. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Prabath Jayasuriya were the other major movers up that table. Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Rashid Khan, two of Afghanistan’s white-ball heroes, have made significant progress on the ODI rankings. Travis Head has also ascended the ranks.

He scored 39 and 109 (off just 128 balls) as India defeated Bangladesh 280 runs to win the first Test in Chennai. With 731 rating points, that catapulted Pant back into sixth position. Jaiswal, who had been ranked sixth before the most recent update, shot up to fifth position with a seventy-six point total from his 56 in India’s opening innings.

After almost two years, Rishabh Pant returned to Test cricket for the first time after a vehicle accident that almost ended his career.

With 899 points, Joe Root leads the field, followed by Kane Williamson (852 points), who scored 55 and 30 in New Zealand’s 63-run defeat in the first Test in Galle. Above Jaiswal, Daryl Mitchell (760 points) and Steven Smith (757 points) maintained their positions.

But Rohit dropped quite a bit, from No. 5 to No. 10, barely four rating points above Babar Azam at No. 11, after returning 6 and 5 in Chennai while falling victim to pace in both innings.

After scoring 6 and 17, Virat Kohli also dropped five spots to No. 12, and Shubman Gill, who outscored Bangladesh by five runs to score 119 not out in the second innings, moved up to No. 14.

Jayasuriya was the major shiftr in the bowling rankings after winning Player-of-the-Match in Galle with scores of 4 for 136 and 5 for 68. Jayasuriya rose five spots to the eighth spot.

That ranking is dominated by Indians and Australians. In Chennai, R Ashwin (0 for 29 and 6 for 88) is ranked first, followed at No. 2 by Jasprit Bumrah (4 for 50 and 1 for 24). Following Bumrah are Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, and Kagiso Rabada. In sixth place is another Indian, Ravindra Jadeja (2 for 19 and 3 for 58), followed by Nathan Lyon at No. 7.

In contrast, Kamindu Mendis moved up three spots to 16th on the batting chart after his 114 against New Zealand in the first innings.

Travis Head and Gurbaz climb the ODI batters’ ladder

Gurbaz was dismissed for a duck in the opening One-Day International (ODI) match in Sharjah against South Africa. However, he bounced back, making 110 in 110 balls and 89 in 94 balls in the next two matches, helping Afghanistan win the series 2-1. That moved him up ten spots to eighth place among ODI batters and made him the first player from his country to crack the top ten.

Head moved up seven ranks to No. 9 after smashing 154 not out in 129 balls in the first ODI against England, a match in which he also returned 2 for 34 with the ball.

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Rashid was his team’s other main contributor throughout the series between Afghanistan and South Africa. In Afghanistan’s two victories over South Africa, he claimed seven wickets, moving up at the top of the bowlers’ standings by an astonishing eight places, behind only Adam Zampa and Keshav Maharaj.