Team India captain Virat Kohli added yet another feather to his cap by becoming the seventh India batsman and first since Sachin Tendulkar in June 2011, to top the MRF Tyres ICC Player Rankings for Test Batsmen, which were released on Sunday morning following the conclusion of the Edgbaston Test. Kohli was the lone fighter for India in the first Test against England scoring 149 and 51 in India’s 31-run defeat. This helped him go up by 31 points and end former Australian skipper Steve Smith’s 32-month reign as the top-ranked batsman and reach the top of the summit for the first time in his 67-Test career.
Kohli now leads Steve Smith by five points but has a good chance to extend that lead in the remaining four Tests to finish the series as the world’s highest-ranked batsman. Apart from Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Gautam Gambhir, Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag and Dilip Vengsarkar are the other India batsmen to have achieved number-one rankings during their careers.
Tendulkar had joined Jacques Kallis in number-one position in January 2011, but had dropped to the second spot following the Jamaica Test in June 2011 after he had missed the three-Test series against the West Indies.
Kohli’s feat is special as he is now India’s highest-ranked batsman with 934 points and 14th overall, on the all-time tally of points. Kohli had started the Edgbaston Test on 903 points, 13 points behind Gavaskar, and is now ahead of the ICC Cricket Hall of Famer by 18 points.
If he continues the good form and delivers in the second Test at Lord’s, Kohli will have the chance to break into the top-10 by leapfrogging Matthew Hayden, Kallis and AB de Villiers, whose highest points tally was 935 each. Donald Bradman (961) and Steve Smith (947) are the two batsmen sitting on top of this exclusive list.
Another player who gained for his performance in the Edgbaston Test is England all-rounder Sam Curran. The 20-year-old jumped from 152nd to 72nd in the batting table while the bowling table has seen him rise 49 places to 62nd. In the all-rounders’ category, he now sits in 37th position after jumping 58 places.