XtraTime Web Desk: India captain Virat Kohli on Wednesday achieved a career-high 911 points to sit on top of the ICC ODI rankings for batsmen. Virat Kohli’s scores of 75, 45 and 71 in the three-match ODI series against England earned him just two points but were enough to take him to 911 points, highest since Australia’s Dean Jones’ tally of 918 points in March 1991. Meanwhile, spinner Kuldeep Yadav broke into the top-10 for the first time. Kuldeep took nine wickets in the recently-concluded ODI series, including a six-for at Trent Bridge. Due to his performance, he rose eight places and is placed at a career-high sixth position.
Kuldeep is the second Indian bowler after Jasprit Bumrah and the fifth spinner to find a place in the 10 highest-ranked bowlers. The other four are Rashid Khan (second), Imran Tahir (seventh), Adil Rashid (eighth) and Yuzvendra Chahal (10th).
England batsman Joe Root’s back-to-back centuries have helped him vault into second place in the rankings list. Root has leapfrogged Babar Azam (Pakistan), Rohit Sharma (India), David Warner (Australia) and Ross Taylor (New Zealand) to a career-high second position.
Root had scores of three, 113 not out and 100 not out, which earned him 34 points and have now put him 93 points behind Kohli. Root had previously reached fourth in the batting rankings in August 2016 and is now just one point below his career-best points tally of 819, which he had achieved against Australia earlier this year in Brisbane.
Jason Roy and Eoin Morgan are the other batsmen to improve their rankings in the latest table. Roy has moved up one place to 19th, while Morgan is now in 22nd spot after rising two places.
England pacer Liam Plunkett, has gained one place and is now 20th, Mark Wood is on a career-high 26th ranking after rising two places and David Willey has jumped 11 places to claim 31st position.
There is no change in the top five all-rounders, with Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan leading the field.
In the team rankings, number-one ranked England have moved to 127 points after gaining one point, while India have dropped one point to finish on 121 points. This means the four-point pre-series gap has now extended to six points.