Gambhir, Dhoni move up in ICC rankings

New Delhi:

Indian opener Gautam Gambhir on Wednesday was rewarded for his splendid performance in New Zealand with the career-best fourth position in the latest ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen.

Gambhir has been rewarded with a rise of one place following his scores of 23 and 167 and the New Delhi batsman now sits in career-best fourth position with third-placed Kumar Sangakkara of Sri Lanka firmly within his sights.

The 27-year-old left-hander has climbed five places in the series after contributing 445 runs with the bat, including two centuries and a half-century. Gambhir is also enjoying the form of his career as in the last eight Tests he has scored 1,269 runs and has vaulted 33 places in the rankings.

In contrast, Gambhir's partner Sehwag has dropped three places to 20th position after scores of 48 and 12. The 30-year-old master blaster had started the series in 14th position but he has lost six places after scoring just 140 runs in five innings. Besides Sehwag, VVS Laxman has also slipped one place to 16th position.

While Indian captain MS Dhoni also moved up five places to share 31st spot with England's Ian Bell, Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul 'Wall' Dravid retained their 14th and 26th positions respectively.

From the New Zealand side, Ross Taylor became the highest-ranked after his scores of 42 and 107. The 25-year-old from Wellington has rocketed five places to 27th position and has gained a total of seven places in the table after a series total of 322 runs, including two centuries.

While captain Daniel Vettori has held on to his 33rd place in the batting table, Jesse Ryder's double failure in Wellington has dropped him five places to 35th position while wicketkeeper-batsman Brendon McCullum has also slipped three places to 37th position.

The batting list is still headed by Shivnarine Chanderpaul of the West Indies with Pakistan captain Younus Khan in second place and Sangakkara in third position.

Indian pace spearhead Zaheer Khan also jumped two places to 12th spot whereas his bowling partner Ishant Sharma slipped out of the top 20 after claiming just one wicket in Wellington.

The bowling table is still headed by Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan with Dale Steyn of South Africa in second place and Australia's Mitchell Johnson third.