West Indies skipper Jason Holder has made career-high strides in the latest ICC Test Rankings, released after the conclusion of their first Test of the three-match series against England. Holder has been named as the number one all-rounder and the number two bowler in red-ball cricket.
The 28-year-old has attained the career-best points tally of 862, the highest by any West Indies bowler since Courtney Walsh’s 866 in 2000. His efforts, which included a six-wicket haul in the first innings, in the opening Test against England at the Rose Bowl in Southampton were duly credited in the rankings.
Meanwhile, Australia speedster Pat Cummins continue to lead the Test bowling rankings with 904 points. Neil Wagner, Tim Southee and Kagio Rabada respectively hold the following positions after Holder.
The tally of 485 points in the all-rounder’s list is also Holder’s career-best and the Barbadian now leads second-placed Ben Stokes by a margin of 54 points who also attained his career-best tally of points.
Indian spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin hold the third and fifth position, while Mitchell Starc sits at the fourth position in the Test all-rounder rankings.
Meanwhile, the batting rankings remain unchanged with Steve Smith, Virat Kohli, Marnus Labuschagne, Kane Williamson and Babar Azam respectively remaining at the positions from first to fifth.
Other England players to move up the rankings include left-handed opener Rory Burns, who is in the top 30 for the first time after scores of 30 and 42, while middle-order batsman Zak Crawley is in the top 100 after accumulating 86 runs in the match.
For the visiting side, Shannon Gabriel has gained 46 points to reach a tally of 726 with a player-of-the-match effort of nine wickets, but has risen only one place to 18th owing to the wide gap between him and Ravindra Jadeja (722) before the match.
Jermaine Blackwood’s superb second-innings knock of 95 has helped him advance 14 slots to 58th position among batsmen while Shane Dowrich is at a career-best 37th position after scores of 61 and 20.
The win for the West Indies earned them 40 points in the ongoing ICC World Test Championship after a 0-2 loss to India in their only previous series of the championship.
England remain on 146 points and fourth place in the list led by India with 360 points. Australia are second with 296 points while New Zealand are third at 180.
With IANS inputs