The England batter Harry Brook overtook Joe Root to clinch the top spot on the latest ICC Men’s Test Batter Rankings.
England’s Harry Brook also emulated Sachin Tendulkar with 898 rating points which is the 34th highest rating of all time for the test batter.
The young batting star is just a point ahead of Joe Root after the first two tests of the England tour of the New Zealand tour in 2024.
Joe Root has been rewarded for his consistent performances in Test cricket. The young batter has scored 2280 runs in 23 tests at an average of 61.62 amd eight hundreds.
“A changing of the guard at the top of the Test batter rankings, while stars from Australia and South Africa make big gains on the updated list,” ICC stated in a statement.
Brook has hit 1099 runs including four hundreds, in 11 tests in 2024. In the ongoing series in New Zealand, Brook began with 171 in Christchurch and then carried the form to Wellington, scoring 123 and 55. Root, on the other hand, has a hundred from four innings in the series in New Zealand.
Joe Root’s reign is over 😮
A new World No.1 has been crowned in the ICC Men’s Test Batting Rankings 🏅 https://t.co/4r1ozlrWSA
— ICC (@ICC) December 11, 2024
The two batters will be battling for the No.1 spot when England on New Zealand in the third and final test of the series in Hamilton on December 14.
Australia batter Travis Head and South Africa captain Temba Bavuma make ground inside the top 10 for test batters following strong contributions with the bat for the respective countries, while former No.1 ranked batter Marnus Labuschagne improves three places to move to 13th position.
Head powered up Australia’s 10-wicket win in the Adelaide Test. He has hit 140 in 141 balls, taking the victory from India in the first innings.
Meanwhile Indian batters saw a dip in their rankings after the second test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy. India lost to Australia by 10 wickets in the Pink-ball test, days after they won the series opener in Perth.
Rohit Sharma slipped out of the top 30 dropping five spots following his twin failures in the pink ball test. Virat Kohli dropped six places to No.20 Rishabh Pant three spots to No.9. Yashasvi Jaiswal is the only Indian in the top 5 as the left hander retained his No.4 spot in the latest batter charts.
