Former Australian captain Steve Smith has reclaimed the number 1 spot in the latest ICC Test rankings. He has toppled Indian captain Virat Kohli from the perch after Kohli was dismissed for a first-ball duck in the second innings of the Jamaica Test match. However, Kohli’s India are top of the ICC Test Championship with two wins in as many games, and the captain himself overtook MS Dhoni to be India’s most successful Test skipper. However, having made 76 in the first innings against West Indies, he was dismissed by Kemar Roach in the second-innings of the Jamaica Test match.
Smith was on the top spot his since December 2015. It was only in August 2018, when Smith was serving a ban for his role in the Newlands ball-tampering scandal, that Kohli overtook him on the charts, after reaching career-high rating points in the series against England.
The Australian No.4 has fought his way back up the charts in his first series back from the ban, making twin centuries in the first Test against England and 92 in the second. He now averages 63.2 in Test cricket.
Kohli’s next chance to challenge Smith will be in the home Test series against South Africa, starting on 2 October.
Elsewhere on the batting charts, India’s Ajinkya Rahane returned to the top 10, rising four places to No.7, after following up his half-century and hundred in Antigua with another useful half-century in Jamaica. Hanuma Vihari, described by Kohli as “the find of the series”, shot up 40 places to No.30 after just six Tests.
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