Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara toppled Australian captain Ricky Ponting to become the first batsman from the island nation to lead the ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen.
DUBAI: Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara toppled Australian captain Ricky Ponting to become the first batsman from the island nation to lead the ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen issued on Thursday.
The left-handed wicketkeeper batsman scored 92 and 152 in his team's victory in the first cricket Test against England at Kandy to gain two positions to surpass Ponting and South African Jacques Kallis.
Now both the batting and bowling charts are led by Sri Lankans as Sangakkara's compatriot and ace-offie Muttiah Muralitharan leads the bowlers' ranking list.
Sangakkara has also jumped to joint-sixth position in the all-time rankings with 938 points after becoming the first batsman in the game's history to register scores of 150 or more in four successive Tests.
Australian Donald Bradman leads the all-time ranking list with 961 points followed by British Len Hutton with 945.
The 30-year-old player has joined West Indies legends Clyde Walcott, Viv Richards and Garfield Sobers and is the only batsman from the Asian sub-continent in the all-time top-10.
England's Ian Bell also reaped reward for his stellar show in the first Test as he gained six places to break into the top-15 for the first time in his career. He came up with defiant knocks of 83 and 74 in Kandy.
Meanwhile, former India captain Rahul Dravid moved out of top-10 bracket by losing one place to be 11th. Both Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman also lost one place each though they continue to be in top-20 at 18th and 19th spots respectively.
India skipper Anil Kumble also lost one position to be seventh in the bowler's list while paceman Zaheer Khan has maintained his 12th position.
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