India captain Rohit Sharma will be leading Men in Blue's charge in the third edition of the World Test Championship. The 2023 WTC Final runners-up will first be up against Kraigg Brathwaite's West Indies in a two-match contest starting from July 12 at Windsor Park, Roseau, Dominica. India will then square off against Windies from July 20 onwards at Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain, Trinidad.
However, even before the series gets kicked off, India captain Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja have slipped in the ICC Test rankings after the weekly update came on Wednesday. Sharma, who was already out of the Top 10 in the Test batters rankings further go down one spot from 12th to 13th. Going past the Indian star is England's young prodigy Harry Brook, who played a vital hand in England's comeback win over Australia in the third Ashes Test at Headingley. Meanwhile, Jadeja loses one place from 9th after Stuart Broad's rise.
Travis Head, Babar Azam gain as big guns suffer
Notably, there was a big reshuffle in the top six in the batters' chart in Test rankings. While Kane Williamson kept his World No.1 honours, the other five saw a musical chair sort of change. Steve Smith and Marnus Labushcagne drop two places each to 4th and 5th respectively. Whereas Joe Root saw a one-place decline to 6th. Making gains were Travis Head and Babar Azam to take 2nd and 3rd places, respectively. While Head went two places up after a good hand in the 3rd Ashes Test, Azam scaled three spots due to the fall of the other players.
England stars make gains
Not only Brook but a few more England stars have jumped places in the Test tally. Speedster Stuart Broad has scaled four places from 10th to take 6th in the Test bowlers' tally. Ollie Robinson, Nathan Lyon, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja - all went one place down each as they had to compensate for Broad.
Making a Test comeback with a fabulous fifer at Headingley, Mark Wood has also gone up nine places to take 26th in the bowlers' chart.
