When two players made their debut in Rajkot - Sarfaraz Khan and Dhruv Jurel, all the focus was on the former considering the amount of hard work and ignorance from selectors he had to handle before finally earning the much-awaited Test cap. Meanwhile, Jurel, the other debutant, soaked in all of it and put up a decent show with the bat and behind the stumps as he had taken over from KS Bharat.
But the real magic from him happened in the fourth Test, second of his career, as Jurel played a brilliant knock of 90 runs in the first innings helping India get close to England's total and then his composed unbeaten 39 took the hosts over the line when things looked tricky at 120/5 chasing 192. His top class wicketkeeping in both innings along with brilliant batting earned him the player of the match award as well with Dhruv Jurel becoming the first Indian wicketkeeper to win it in his debut series since 2002.
The match-winning show with the bat has helped Dhruv Jurel climb a massive 31 places in the latest ICC Test rankings for the batters and he boasts of 461 rating points. He is now at the 69th position in the rankings, only one behind former Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed who is in and out of the Test team currently. Sarfaraz is at the 68th place with 471 rating points but Pakistan aren't playing any Tests in the near future which gives Jurel a chance to go past him in the fifth Test starting from March 7 in Dharamsala.
Among other major changes in the rankings, Yashasvi Jaiswal has gone past Rohit Sharma to be at the 12th position while the Indian captain is at the 13th place. Virat Kohli is India's top ranked batter at the moment at the ninth position despite not playing four Test matches of this series due to personal reasons.
