Pujara, Ashwin skid in latest ICC rankings

Cheteshwar Pujara and R Ashwin managed to remain the best-placed Indians by keeping their place inside the top-10 of the batting and bowling charts respectively but slipped a rung each in the latest ICC rankings issued today.

Pujara was placed sixth in the batting list while Ashwin was eighth among the bowlers after the opening Test against New Zealand which India lost by 40 runs yesterday.

Among other Indians, Virat Kohli remained steady at 11th in the batting rankings followed by Mahendra Singh Dhoni at the 33rd spot, a loss of five positions for the skipper.

Rohit Sharma, who scored a hundred in the lost match, gained rose six rungs to be joint 36th.

Among the bowlers, Pragyan Ojha was the next best-placed Indian after Ashwin at 11th, even though he slipped two positions.

Pace spearhead Zaheer Khan was static at 22nd in the list.

Elsewhere, Kumar Sangakkara’s historic effort of 424 runs in the second and final Test in Chittagong against Bangladesh saw him jump five places to second in the rankings for Test Batsmen.

Sangakkara rewrote the history books with his knocks of 319 and 105 in either innings of the Chittagong Test. He became only the second player in history to score a triple hundred and hundred in the same Test. Overall, he became the fourth man in history to score 400 runs in one Test.