Jason Holder rises to second spot in latest ICC Test rankings for bowlers
West Indies captain Jason Holder has now moved up to the second spot in the ICC Test rankings for bowlers after West Indies managed to pull off a famous win against England in the first Test at Southampton.
Jason Holder picked up career-best 6-42 in Southampton Test
Jason Holder impressed everyone with the ball in the first innings, picking up career-best figures of 6-42, which played an important role in the visitors winning the Test. Owing to this performance, his rating points also rose to 862 which are the best rating points reached by any West Indies bowler in 20 years after Courtney Walsh, who had 866 points in the August of 2000.
Jason Holder remained unbeaten at the end of the West Indies' chase in the fourth innings and prevented any late hiccups. This helped him in retaining his 35th rank among batsmen in the ICC Test rankings. Jason Holder has also reached the summit among the all-rounders with yet another career-best rating of 485 points.
England's stand-in skipper Ben Stokes too had a decent game with both bat and ball and that helped him reduce the gap between him and Jason Holder to 54 points, reaching a tally of 431 points and is in second place in the ICC Test rankings among all-rounders.
As far as the batsmen are concerned, Ben Stokes was able to reach a career-best 9th position after scores of 43 and 46. Ben Stokes also picked up six wickets with the ball and that helped him rise three places higher to 23rd rank among bowlers in the ICC Test rankings.
Although England lost the game, there were some decent performances with the bat from the home side. Rory Burns got starts in both the innings with scores of 30 and 42 respectively and it helped him move into the top 30 among batsmen in the ICC Test rankings. Zak Crawley also impressed with a well-made 76 in the second innings and broke into the top 100 among batsmen.
Before the Southampton Test, Shannon Gabriel was 42 points behind 18th-placed bowler Ravindra Jadeja, who had 722 rating points. But a fine man-of-the-match performance with nine wickets helped him leap over the latter as he reached 726 rating points and in the 18th place among bowlers in the ICC Test rankings.