Dubai, Aug 21 (IANS): The West Indies pair of Jayden Seales and Jason Holder climbed up the ICC Men's Test Player Rankings, emerging as the big winners in the updated list released on Wednesday. Seales and Holder both performed well during the West Indies' recent Test series against South Africa, despite the fact the Caribbean side fell to a 1-0 series defeat.
Seales collected nine wickets in the second Test in Guyana, with his six-wicket haul in the second innings of the contest seeing the 22-year-old claim his best Test figures of 6/61. His superb performance in Guyana helped him gain 13 places on the Test rankings for bowlers and a new career-high rating in 13th place. India's Ravichandran Ashwin continues to lead the Test bowling list with Australia's Josh Hazlewood and India's Jasprit Bumrah sharing the second spot.
Holder also made good ground in all three categories, with the 32-year-old gaining two spots to move up to fifth behind Indian duo Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin on the latest rankings for Test all-rounders following good contributions with the bat and ball in Guyana.
The veteran star made an unbeaten half-century in the first innings of the second Test, pushing him up to fifth in the rankings for all-rounders and ensuring a seven-spot jump to equal 60th on the Test batters' list.
With good performances in the series, players from the West Indies and South Africa make ground on the latest Test rankings.
Seales and Holder's West Indies teammates Jomel Warrican (up two spots to 52nd) and Shamar Joseph (up 11 rungs to 54th) also gained some ground on the list for Test bowlers, while South Africa seamer Wiaan Mulder rose 27 places to 65th following his six wickets and Player of the Match performance.
South Africa duo Aiden Markram (up two places to 21st) and Kyle Verreynne (up 16 spots to equal 46th) were the biggest eye-catchers on the Test rankings for batters, with Joe Root maintaining his place as the No.1 ranked batter ahead of England's Test series with Sri Lanka.
New Zealand's Kane Williamson was placed second in the list with Pakistan's Babar Azam third ahead of New Zealander Daryl Mitchell, Steve Smith of Australia and Rohit Sharma of India.