Ravichandran Ashwin’s reign as the world’s top-ranked Test bowler has ended as he’s been usurped by his India teammate Jasprit Bumrah following another world-class performance during the recent Kanpur Test against Bangladesh. Bumrah landed crucial blows en route to a match haul of six wickets which helped him regain the world’s no. 1 ranking.
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Ashwin, who won player of the series award for his outstanding show with the bat and the ball, is now second in the list of world’s top fast bowlers in Test cricket. However, there’s just a difference of one point between Ashwin (869) and Bumrah (870). Bangladesh spinner Mehidy Hasan Miraj improved four spots to claim the 18th position while veteran allrounder Shakib Al Hasan has skipped five places to be 28th on the list.
Australia’s Josh Hazlewood has kept hold over the third spot while his Test captain Pat Cummins is behind him at fourth. South African pace spearhead Kagiso Rabada is joint fourth in the list. The other Indian bowler in top-10 is allrounder Ravindra Jadeja who is static at sixth – eight points ahead of seventh-placed Nathan Lyon of Australia.
Sri Lankan spinner Prabath Jayasuriya, who played a starring role in his team’s 2-0 clean sweep of New Zealand in a two-match Test series at home recently, has risen one spot to a career-best ranking of 7th now.
Bumrah and Ashwin both finished the Bangladesh Test series with 11 wickets each. However, Ashwin pipped Bumrah to the player-of-the-series award thanks to his exceptional show with the bat in the first Test in Chennai where he scored a century to bail India out from a tight spot.
Overall, this is Ashwin’s 11th player-of-the-series award which now puts him on level terms with the legendary Muttiah Muralitharan.
The Indian Test specialists will have a rest of a couple of weeks before returning to action with the New Zealand Tests which get underway from October 16.
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