Pakistan’s Babar Azam and Mohammad Abbas move up Test rankings

LONDON – Pakistan’s Babar Azam and Mohammad Abbas have advanced in the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s Test Player Rankings after some fine performance in the drawn second Test against England in Southampton.

Fast bowler Mohammad Abbas took 2/28 in England’s score of 110/4 declared, gaining two places to reach eighth position, but is still away from his career-best ranking of third in October 2018.

In the batsmen’s list, Babar Azam is back at a career-best fifth position, which he had attained in February 2020. His knock of 47 helped him gain one place while his compatriots Abid Ali (up to 49th) and Mohammad Rizwan (up to 75th) have also attained career-best rankings after knocking up half-centuries.

For England, Stuart Broad has moved up one slot to second position in the bowlers’ list after a haul of 4/56 while James Anderson has moved up two slots to 14th with figures of 3/60, as the pair helped dismiss Pakistan for 236 in their only innings of the match.

Zak Crawley has moved to a career-best 81st place after a score of 53, even as all-rounder Ben Stokes and captain Joe Root have retained their seventh and ninth positions, respectively.

In the ICC World Test Championship points table, England remain in third position with 279 points while Pakistan are fifth with 153. The list is led by India with 360 points and Australia are second at 296.

Each series of the WTC is worth 120 points, distributed evenly over the number of matches in a series. The points range from 60 for each match of a two-Test series to 24 for each match of a five-Test series.