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Dravid takes over the top spot

Brian Lara's twin failures in the Lord's Test against England has meant that Rahul Dravid has, for the first time in his career, taken over as the top Test batsman in the PwC Ratings

Wisden Cricinfo staff
27-Jul-2004
Brian Lara's twin failures in the Lord's Test against England has meant that Rahul Dravid has, for the first time in his career, taken over as the top Test batsman in the PwC ratings. Lara aggregated only 55 runs in his two innings at Lord's, resulting in his rating points slipping to 881, while Dravid's remained at 892, three more than Matthew Hayden, who moved into second place ahead of Lara.
Dravid's rise to the top has been the result of an amazingly consistent run over the last couple of years - since the tour to the West Indies in 2001-02, he has scored 2526 runs in 23 Tests at an outstanding average of 76.55, with eight centuries, four of them double-hundreds.
Apart from a change at the top, the latest ratings also gave Michael Vaughan top billing among England's batsmen. Vaughan rose five places to 18th, thanks to centuries in each innings at Lord's. Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who failed to emulate that landmark by just three runs, climbed 12 places to 16th.
Rank Batsman Points Average
1 Dravid 892 58.09
2 Hayden 889 58.14
3 Lara 881 53.43
4 Kallis 833 54.07
5 Ponting 832 54.33
6 Gibbs 815 49.40
7 Inzamam 785 49.63
8 Tendulkar 784 57.39
9 Sehwag 782 52.72
10 Richardson 761 47.94
Meanwhile, Ashley Giles's Man-of-the-Match performance not only secured him a place on the famous dressing-room honours board, it also propelled him into the top twenty of the PwC Ratings for the first time in his career.
In general, it was a match in which bowlers struggled, but Giles rose above the dominance of the bat to take 9 for 210, his best figures in a home Test. Following on from a six-wicket haul against New Zealand at Trent Bridge earlier in the summer, Giles has climbed nine places to 19th, while Pedro Collins - the pick of West Indies' attack - was up eight places to 15th, thanks to his figures of 7 for 175.
Prior to the match, all eyes had been on Steve Harmison, who could have gone top of the list had he taken five or more wickets. Instead he had a disappointing game by his recent high standards, taking just two scalps in the second innings. Even so, he remained second behind Muttiah Muralitharan, and still has the No. 1 spot in his sights as the second Test begins at Edgbaston on Thursday.
Rank Bowler Points Average
1 Muralitharan 886 22.76
2 Harmison 864 24.95
3 Pollock 837 21.46
4 Shoaib 826 24.47
5 McGrath 805 21.61
6 Warne 762 25.47
7 Kumble 751 28.22
8 Gillespie 740 25.71
9 Ntini 722 29.67
10 Harbhajan 635 28.47
Click here for the complete ratings.