Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Wednesday surged to the top of the International Cricket Council (ICC) player rankings for Test bowlers with a career-best haul of 13/140 in the third and final Test against New Zealand.
Man of the Match Ashwin helped India defeat New Zealand by a massive 321 runs in the third match, India’s second biggest victory in terms of runs.
Ashwin, who was named Man of the Series after he finished with 27 wickets in a 3-0 sweep by India, now has 220 wickets, the most by any bowler after 39 Tests.
This was seventh Man of the Series for Tamil Nadu bowler in 14 Test series.
Ranked third before the final Test in Indore, Ashwin has leapfrogged pacers James Anderson and Dale Steyn to attain a career-best rating of 900 points. Steyn and Anderson have 878 and 870 rating points respectively.
Ashwin, who finished the 2015 year-end rankings as the number-one bowler and was also at the top briefly in July this year, has joined a select band to have touched a rating of 900 points since 2000, the others being Muttiah Muralidaran, Glenn McGrath, Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn and Shaun Pollock.
Among the batsmen, Ajinkya Rahane has attained a career-best sixth rank. The Mumbai batsman gained five slots after starting the match at 11th position.
Cheteshwar Pujara and skipper Virat Kohli also moved up the rankings. Pujara's knocks of 41 and unbeaten 101 have helped him move up one place to the 14th rank, while Kohli's scores of 211 and 17 in the final Test have helped him jump four places to 16th position.
In the all-rounders' list, Ravindra Jadeja reached a career-best joint-third rank.
