ICC Rankings: 40-year-old Anderson tops Test rankings, Ashwin second, Jadeja-Akshar also benefited

Pankaj Prasad
James Anderson and  Ravichandran Ashwin
James Anderson and Ravichandran Ashwin

Australian skipper Pat Cummins has dropped two places and lost the top spot in the Test rankings for bowlers.

Australia's Test captain Pat Cummins has lost the top bowler position in the ICC rankings. He has lost two places and has come in third place. England fast bowler James Anderson has regained the top spot at the age of 40. At the same time, India's star spinner Ravichandran Ashwin is in second place. Apart from Ashwin, India's Ravindra Jadeja and Akshar Patel have also gained in the ICC rankings. These players have performed brilliantly in the Test series against Australia.

Took seven wickets and England won the match by 267 runs. On the basis of this performance, Anderson has once again topped the ICC Test rankings at the age of 40. He snatched the crown of top bowler from Pat Cummins. Cummins was the number one bowler in Tests for four years.

Anderson, who made his debut in 2003, has topped the Test rankings. He reached the number one spot in the Test rankings for the first time in May 2016. After this, in 2018, he was the top Test bowler for five months. After this Kagiso Rabada removed him. Now Anderson has made a strong comeback again. He is behind only Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne in terms of taking the most wickets in Tests. Anderson has 682 Test wickets, Shane Warne has 708 and Muttiah Muralitharan has taken 800 Test wickets.
Anderson, who reached the top at 40 years and 207 days, is the oldest bowler to reach the top ranking since Australia's Clarrie Grimmett in 1936. However, second-ranked Ashwin is just two rating points behind him. Ashwin is on the second spot with a total of 864 rating points. Cummins, on the other hand, has slipped to the third spot with 858 rating points but can still do well in Australia's ongoing Test series against India to regain the top spot. Though the chances are slim, Ashwin could be at the top with a bang in the third Test.

Blundell and Conway gain in batsmen's rankings

New Zealand's Tom Blundell (11th) and Devon Conway (17th) have reached career-best rankings for Test batsmen. At the same time, England's Ollie Pope (23rd), Harry Brook (31st) and Ben Duckett (38th) have also achieved career-best positions in the rankings for batsmen in Tests.

Indian spinner Ravindra Jadeja has moved up seven places to ninth in the list of Test bowlers. At the same time, Akshar Patel has moved up two places to fifth in the Test all-rounder rankings. He has so far scored 158 runs in the series against Australia and is the second highest run scorer. 

Due to the series of three T20 matches between Afghanistan and United Arab Emirates, there have been changes in T20 rankings. Afghanistan may have won the series 2-1 but Rashid Khan managed only four wickets and has lost the top spot in the T20 bowlers' rankings. Wanindu Hasaranga of Sri Lanka is the new number one T20 bowler. UAE's star batsman Muhammad Wasim scored 199 runs in this series at an average of 66 and reached the seventh position in the T20I rankings for batsmen.