Ravichandran Ashwin climbs to seventh place in the ICC ranking

DUBAI: Ravichandran Ashwin, Indian spinner, is ranked seventh in the latest ranking of ICC bowlers.

Indian captain Virat Kohli maintained his leading position in the drummers' standings before the four-test series against Australia on Dec. 6.

Among other teams, Englishman Jonny Bairstow, Pakistan's Mominul Haque and Pakistan's Yasir Shah of Bangladesh posted impressive gains after their contributions to the convincing victories of their teams earlier this week.

The 110 and 15 Bairstow were the cornerstone of England's victory over the 42 points won by Colombo against Sri Lanka, which allowed the visitors to win a 3-0 series victory.

Mominul scored 120 and 12 as Bangladesh beat the Windies by 64 points in Chittagong for their first win against the Caribbean, and Yasir recorded 14 wins for the match against 184 as Pakistan moved back to Dubai to tie the game with New Zealand and win 16 points.

These performances not only earned the three players the rewards of the match, but were also reflected in the latest ranking of players, released Wednesday morning.

Bairstow returned to the top 20 in 16th position after winning six spots, Mominul is now just behind the top 20 in 24th place after climbing 11 spots and Yasir is back in the top 10 in 10th place after having jumped nine places.

A number of other players have improved their rankings, after impressive performances in the tests that have just finished.

Kohli is still in the lead, Azhar Ali has climbed three places in 12th place, Kusal Mendis is 20th (eight places), Ben Stokes is 31st (five places), Roshen Silva is 48th five places and Shane Dowrich is 58th (seven places).

Henry Nicholls of New Zealand leads the group of drummers who have reached a peak in their careers.

Nicholls is now ranked 17th (three places), Jos Buttler is 18th (three places), Haris Sohail is 38th (33 places), Babar Azam is 39th (24 places) and Ben Foakes 50th (four places).

In the bowlers' table, Kagiso Rabada became the number one bowler after the Englishman James Anderson lost 1% of his points for missing the Colombo test. This meant that Anderson had lost nine points and was now eight points behind the South African fast pitcher.