Indian batting great Virat Kohli rose to eighth spot and surpassed Pakistan’s Babar Azam in the latest Test rankings for batsmen released by the ICC. Kohli hasn’t played a single Test match since January 2024, but managed to grab the eighth spot. On the other hand, former Pakistan Test captain Babar Azam lost six places to drop to the ninth spot. His rankings were severely affected by his poor knocks of 0 and 22 in the first Test against Bangladesh.
This is for the first time in the last few years that Azam slipped out of top five rankings across all formats. Speaking of Kohli, the former India captain grabbed the eighth spot with 737 points while Babar is three points below him. Azam is one spot ahead of his compatriot Mohammad Rizwan who advanced seven spots to reach joint-tenth with Usman Khawaja at 728 points.
Apart from Kohli, two other Indians have also found spots in the top 10. Young dynamic batter Yashasvi Jaiswal secured the seventh spot with 740 points whereas Indian captain Rohit Sharma remained steady in sixth position. The latest rankings saw Joe Root’s dominance on the top after his scores of 42 and 62* in the first Test against Sri Lanka. With a total of 881 rating points, Root is 22 points ahead of Kane Williamson, who is on the second spot.
Daryl Mitchell, Harry Brook and Steve Smith have occupied third, fourth and fifth spots, respectively. Among bowlers, Indian spinning wizard Ravichandran Ashwin continues to hold the top position while Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja are on their third and seventh spots, respectively.