Travis Head attains career-best second position in latest ICC Men's Test Player Rankings

Australia batter Travis Head has overtaken team-mates Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne to grab a career-best second position in the ICC Men’s Test Player Rankings. Head’s scores of 39 and 77 in the third match of their ICC World Test Championship series against England at Headingly have taken him to within nine points of Kane Williamson’s 883 rating points even as the batting rankings continue to be volatile at the top with five of the top seven featuring in the ongoing Ashes series.

Head’s previous best ranking was third, attained after the ICC World Test Championship Final against India last month, in which he had scored a decisive 163 in the first innings. Quite a few England batters have progressed in the weekly update carried out on Wednesday after a three-wicket victory helped them narrow the gap in the series to 2-1.

Harry Brook has moved up to a career-best 12th place after scoring 75 in the second innings, captain Ben Stokes is in the top 20 for the first time since September after scoring 80 in the first innings and Zak Crawley’s knocks of 33 and 44 have lifted him eight places to 48th position.

In the bowling rankings, Stuart Broad and Mark Wood have made notable progress. Broad has gained four places to reach sixth position after finishing with five wickets in the match while Wood is up nine places to 26th with a career-best 591 rating points with seven wickets, including a five-for in the second innings. Chris Woakes has re-entered the rankings in 36th position after taking three wickets each in both innings.

In the ICC Men’s ODI Player Rankings, Afghanistan batter Ibrahim Zadran has gained 11 slots to reach 16th position after contributing 142 runs during a 2-1 series win over Bangladesh while Rahmanullah Gurbaz has galloped 37 places to 45th after topping the series aggregate with 173 runs.

Player of the Series Fazalhaq Faroozi has progressed 58 places to 33rd position after grabbing eight wickets in the series while Rashid Khan is up three places to fourth. For Bangladesh, Liton Das has moved up three places to 38th after aggregating 92 runs in the series while Shakib Al Hasan is back in the top 10 for bowlers.

In the latest weekly update, that also takes into consideration performances in matches of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2023 played over the past week, Netherlands’ Max D’Owd (up five places to 56th) and USA’s Gajanand Singh (up five places to 59th) are others to move up the batting rankings.

In the bowling rankings, Saurabh Netravalkar of the USA (up 13 places to 18th), Maheesh Theekshana of Sri Lanka (up 13 places to 19th) and the United Arab Emirates’ Aayan Afzal Khan (up three places to 46th) have made notable progress.