Rohit Sharma. (Photo Source: Jio Cinema)
There was some seismic movement in the latest rankings released by the International Cricket Council on October 30, 2024. Indian skipper Rohit Sharma‘s was quite a prominent one, bearing in mind the magnitude of displacement.
The T20 World Cup-winning skipper was ranked 15th in the rankings of the ICC men’s Test batting. He slumped by a staggering nine spots to end up sitting in the 24th position after immensely underwhelming outings in three of the four innings against New Zealand in the ongoing Test series as of now. Apart from a half-century which he scored in the second innings of the Bengaluru Test, his other scores read 2, 0, and 8.
This is Rohit’s lowest ranking in a span of approximately six years. Rohit’s knocks of 63* and 5 against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground saw him drop to 44th position in December 2018. He made a drastic recovery in his ranking after a couple of big hundreds against South Africa in October 2019, seeing him jump to 17th on the list.
Between February 27, 2021, and February 21, 2023, Rohit was in the top 10 of the rankings, achieving an all-time high rating of 813, which he attained in September 2021. It was at that point in time that he was ranked the fifth-best Test batter in the world.
His teammates, Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant, also slipped by six and five places to 14th and 11th, respectively.
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Bumrah loses No. 1 spot to Rabada
On the bowling front, it was star India pacer, Jasprit Bumrah, who was supplanted by Proteas quick, Kagiso Rabada, who has topped the charts. Rabada has been on a roll against Bangladesh. He recently picked up a nine-wicket haul across the two innings in the first Test of the series.
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Pakistan’s Noman Ali also made significant headway in the Test bowling rankings. His splendid couple of Tests against England saw him getting named among the top-10 bowlers. The 38-year-old was almost unplayable as the English batters succumbed to his guile and shrewd prowess.