Babar, Shaheen slip out of top 10 in Test rankings
Cricket
The Pakistani batter drops three places to No 12
(Dunya News) – Former skipper Babar Azam and fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi suffered setback in latest Test rankings issued by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Wednesday.
Azam slipped three places to No 12 in Test batting rankings while Afridi dropped one place to 11th in bowling section after Pakistan suffered shocking defeat in two-match Test series against Bangladesh in Rawalpindi.
Mohammad Rizwan saw no change in its rankings as it stood at 10th place with 720 points.
However, Joe Root has led to the English star extending his lead atop the ICC Men's Test Batting Rankings after his back-to-back centuries.
Root (922 rating points) now leads by 63 points over New Zealand's Kane Williamson, and the England right-hander has an opportunity to break his own personal best mark, just one point away from the 923 rating he attained in July 2022 after a century against India at Edgbaston.
Just three English batters boast better career highs for Test batters: Len Hutton, Jack Hobbs and Peter May.
Despite his exploits in the second Test against Sri Lanka, Root was overshadowed by Gus Atkinson, whose Player of the Match efforts with bat and ball led to dramatic jumps across all Ranking disciplines.
After becoming just the third player in Men's Test history to score a century and claim a five-wicket haul at the hallowed venue, Atkinson moved up 48 spots, into the top 20 for All-Rounders, and into the top 30 for bowlers.
Whilst on the wrong side of the result at Lord's, there were positive moves for a number of Sri Lanka players in the latest update.
Half-centuries for Kamindu Mendis moved him up 11 spots and into 25th (635), while an eight-wicket performance from Asitha Fernando propelled the seamer into the top ten for the first time (8th, 734).
Over in Pakistan, Bangladesh's barnstorming clean sweep series win saw several Tigers gains.
Rescuing Bangladesh's first innings, at one stage in peril at 26/6, Litton Das's 138 helped the team to a first innings 262, and him to a 12-place push to 15th on the batting rankings. His partner in the seventh-wicket partnership of 165, Mehedy Hasan Miraz, moved up to 75th place with the bat, and his figures of 5-61 in Pakistan’s first innings pushed him up to 7th in the all-rounders list. On the bowling side, Hasan Mahmud and Nahid Rana moved to career-best rankings.
