South African pace bowler Kagiso Rabada regained his top spot in ICC’s Test bowlers ranking courtesy of his two five-wicket hauls in the second Test against Australia at Port Elizabeth.
The right-arm pacer finished the Test with match figures of 11 wickets for 150 runs and gained a heavy boost in his ranking points. Thanks to his fourth ten-wicket haul at Port Elizabeth, Rabada now has 902 ranking points, his highest ever in his career of 28 Tests.
Rabada has also joined the elusive club of bowlers who have broken the barrier of 900 ranking points. He is the only fourth South African bowler to achieve this feat after Shaun Pollock, Dale Steyn, and Vernon Philander.
The South African pacer replaced James Anderson at the top of bowler’s ranking and now is 15 points ahead of Anderson. At number three is Ravindra Jadeja followed by R Ashwin and Josh Hazlewood at number four and five respectively.
The latest ICC rankings also saw AB de Villiers once again jumping up into the list of top ten Test batsmen. The South African batsman scored a fine hundred in the second Test. His scores of 126 not out and 28 in Test boosted his ranking by five points and now he finds himself at number seven on the list.
Steve Smith who scored 25 and 11 runs in two innings in the second Test is still at number one position in the Test batsmen rankings. Despite his poor performance in the Test, he is strongly placed at number one rank with a lead of 31 points over the second-ranked Virat Kohli.
The updates in the latest ICC rankings will soothe Rabada and South Africa a little as the pace bowler has been banned for the next two Tests because of his inappropriate behavior in the match.
