Babar Azam after celebrating his century against Pakistan in first Test
Pakistan batsman Babar Azam on Tuesday broke into the top five of the ICC Test batting rankings with his sensational and career-best 143 against Bangladesh in the first Test in Rawalpindi. With the promotion up the ladder in the rankings chart, Babar is the only batsman to feature in the top five across formats - top-ranked in T20Is and No.3 in ODIs.
Babar's 143 helped him jump to his career-best fifth position with 800 ratings, and surpassed Australia's David Warner. The top-four - Virat Kohli (928), Steve Smith (911), Marnus Labuschagne (827) and Kane Williamson (814) - remained intact, while Cheteshwa Pujara slipped to the seventh spot owing to Babar's rise.
Meanwhile, Naseem Shah, who became the youngest hat-trick taker in Test cricket on Sunday en route to his four-fer, bagged the 52nd spot in the bowling list.
The win, by an innings for Pakistan on Monday, helped them rise to the fourth spot in the ICC World Test Championship points table with 140 points from two wins in five games.
