India’s bowling spearhead Jasprit Bumrah has attained the joint-highest rating points ever achieved by a Test bowler from his country after another excellent performance in the third match of their ICC World Test Championship series against Australia in Melbourne.
Bumrah, who finished with a match-haul of nine for 94, added 14 points to his tally and went up to 904 rating points, which the recently retired Ravichandran Ashwin had reached in December 2016 after the fourth Test against England in Mumbai in December 2016.
Bumrah’s 21 wickets in the series so far have helped him increase his lead at the top of the bowling rankings to 48 rating points. Formerly top ranked bowlers Kagiso Rabada (856) and Josh Hazlewood (852) are second and third in the list.
Mohammad Siraj has inched up one place to 24th and Travis Head is in the top 100 of the bowlers’ list even as a clutch of batters including Head have made headway in the latest rankings update that considers performances in all matches that ended over the past week.
Head’s knock of 152 in the first innings has helped him overtake India opener Yashasvi Jaiswal to fourth in the list led by Joe Root. Steve Smith is back in the top 10 after scoring 101 in the first innings while Alex Carey’s scores of 70 and 20 not out have lifted him 11 slots to 29th position. India’s KL Rahul has progressed 10 spots to 40th and Ravindra Jadeja nine spots to 42nd.
Ayub and Klaasen make notable progress: The ICC Men’s ODI Player Rankings see the star performers of the South Africa-Pakistan ODI series make handsome gains.
Player of the Series Saim Ayub, who had scores of 109, 25 and 101 in Pakistan’s memorable 3-0 victory, has advanced 57 slots to a career-best 23rd position, while for the home side, Heinrich is back in the top five after scores of 86, 97 and 81 in the series.
Tony de Zorzi of South Africa (up 12 places to 59th) and Salman Agha of Pakistan (up 28 places to 80th) are among the other movers in the batting rankings while Kagiso Rabada (up two places to 19th) and Marco Jansen (up six places to 35th) of South Africa, and Nasim Shah of Pakistan (up 10 places to 51st) have made headway in the bowling rankings.
Afghanistan bowlers Fazalhaq Farooqi (up 11 places to 37th) and Azmatullah Omarzai (up 43 places to 58th) are among others to move up the ODI bowling rankings after the end of their series against Zimbabwe that they won 2-0.
In the T20I Bowling Rankings, Bangladesh’s Mahedi Hasan has entered the top 10 while Roston Chase of the West Indies has moved towards the top 10, up 11 slots to 13th position.
Geneva Cuffs
Cricket became an Olympic sport in 1896. However, no matches were held because there was an insufficient number of teams who attended. Had the sport been played that year, cricket would have earned the distinction of being the only team sport to be played at the time. The first Olympic match in the next Olympics (1900) was participated in by the men’s teams. Great Britain (represented by the Devon and Somerset Wanderers) won gold.
natural mess
The most tries scored by a rugby player is 69 – Though Japan is yet to take the world cup, former player Daisuke Ohata holds the world record for most international tries with 69. He set the bar between 1996 and 2006 while playing on the wing and once scored eight tries in a single match. It’s going to be a long time before anyone beats that record!