Virat Kohli is new No.1 batsman in Test cricket

Monday, 6 August 2018 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

His spectacular performance with the bat in the Edgbaston Test has taken Virat Kohli past Steve Smith to the top position in the world rankings.

When the latest updates were made, the India captain was placed right on top of the perch with a career-high 934 ratings points, just ahead of Smith, who is at 929 points.

India lost the Edgbaston Test by 31 runs, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of their talismanic leader. Kohli scored 149 – his 22nd Test century – and 51, a total of exactly 200 runs even as India, the number one Test team in the world, scored only 274 and 162.

As such, Smith hasn’t played any Test cricket since being suspended for his role in the ball-tampering incident in the Cape Town Test against South Africa in March. He missed the last Test of that series, in which he aggregated 142 runs in six innings and Australia lost 3-1.

For Kohli, too, it was a first Test match appearance since India’s Test tour of South Africa in January, when he scored a century and a half-century in India’s 2-1 series defeat.

Apart from Kohli and Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Gautam Gambhir, Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag and Dilip Vengsarkar are the other Indian batsmen to have achieved number one rankings during their careers.

However, at 934 points, Kohli has become India’s highest-ranked batsman, 14th overall, on the all-time tally of points. Kohli had entered the Edgbaston Test on 903 points, 13 points behind Gavaskar, and is now ahead of the ICC Cricket Hall of Famer by 18 points.

If Kohli can deliver another strong performance in the second Test at Lord’s, then he can break into the top 10 by leapfrogging Matthew Hayden, Kallis and AB de Villiers, whose highest points tally was 935 each. Donald Bradman (961) and Steve Smith (947) are the two batsmen sitting on top of this exclusive list.

Kohli, who powered India to the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup title in 2008, and then won the prestigious Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for ICC Cricketer of the Year in 2017, is the 76th player to top the Test batting rankings. He is also the number one ranked ODI batsman, but is ranked 12th in T20Is, 220 points behind number one ranked Aaron Finch of Australia.