New Delhi, Sep 4 (IANS): England’s premier batter Joe Root has extended his lead on top of the ICC Men’s Test batting rankings after notching up twin centuries in his side’s 190-run win over Sri Lanka at Lord’s.
Root’s scores of 143 and 103 have helped him get a lead of 63 points over second-placed Kane Williamson. Root is now on 922 rating points, just one short of his best-ever total: of 923 points, which he achieved against India at Edgbaston in July 2022.
Only three England batters have attained higher points tallies than Root – Len Hutton, Jack Hobbs and Peter May. Daryl Mitchell of New Zealand, Steve Smith of Australia and Harry Brook of England are at three to five positions in the Test batters’ list and are followed by the Indian troika of captain Rohit Sharma, his opening partner Yashaswi Jaiswal and talismanic batter Virat Kohli.
Pacer Gus Atkinson is another England player to gain big after Root in the Test rankings. He earned the Player of the Match award at Lord’s for making 118 - his maiden first-class century – and taking a five-wicket haul in the second innings.
The century has helped Atkinson jump a whopping 80 places to 96th in the ranking for batters while he has moved up 14 places to 28th among bowlers’ list. He is also up 48 places to 17th in the all-rounders’ list led by Ravindra Jadeja.
Kamindu Mendis (up 11 places to 25th), Jamie Smith (up five places to 37th) and Pathum Nissanka (re-entered at 82nd position) are other notable movements for batters performing at Lord’s while Asitha Fernando’s eight wickets have lifted him into the top 10 for the first time, and be at eighth position.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s six-wicket victory at Rawalpindi helped them seal a historic 2-0 series victory over Pakistan led to some major gains for their players. Wicketkeeper-batter Liton Das has reached a career-best 15th position after rescuing his side from a precarious 26/6 in the first innings, by scoring a solid 138 and adding 165 runs with Mehidy Hasan Miraz.
Mehidy, who contributed a crucial 78 runs, has jumped 10 places to 75th among batters while his figures of 5-61 in the first innings have helped him move from 23rd to 22nd among bowlers and up to seventh among all-rounders. A lean patch for Pakistan batter Babar Azam saw him drop out of top ten rankings to be at 12th place.