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- Published: February 22, 2023 17:38
New Delhi: ICC has released the latest player rankings for men’s cricket and James Anderson at the age of 40 years and 207 days, has attained the top spot among bowlers in Test cricket. England beating New Zealand and India beating Australia has led to some big changes in the rankings, while there have been some shifts in the T20I rankings after the series between Afghanistan and UAE.
Anderson picked up a total of seven wickets in the first Test against New Zealand and taking his total Test wickets tally to 682, which is all-time third, he stands on top of the Test bowling rankings. Just behind him is Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who has been a catalyst in destroying the Australian batting line-up in Nagpur and Delhi. The off-spinner is just two points behind the Englishman.
The English pacer has become the oldest since Australian leggie Clarrie Grimmet to achieve this feat. His performance against the Blackcaps also brought his average below 26 and this proves that he is ageing like a fine wine.
After picking up seven wickets in the second inning of the Delhi Test, Ravindra Jadeja has also entered the top 10 bowling rankings. Meanwhile, not bowling much, Axar Patel has fallen seven spots to the 27th rank.
Jadeja has retained his top spot in the Test all-rounder rankings while Axar, with his 84 and 74 in two innings has risen to 5th spot. Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith have held their top two spots among the batters while Shreyas Iyer, Alex Carey and KL Rahul have seen big falls to 27th, 35th and 58th spots respectively.
In the T20Is, Sri Lankan spinner Wanindu Hasaranga is now the number 1 bowler as Rashid Khan could manage only four wickets in three matches against UAE ad Mujeeb Ur Rahman has fallen two spots to 10th rank. Suryakumar Yadav and Shakib Al Hasan have maintained their top spots in the T20I batting and all-rounder rankings respectively.
