Head closes in on top spot in ICC Test batters' rankings

Travis Head has kept up his consistent rise in the ICC Test batters' rankings, getting to a career best No. 2 at the end of the Headingley Test against England, just nine points behind Kane Williamson.

England's batting stars in that Test, which they won by three wickets, were Ben Stokes and Harry Brook, and they moved up five places to 18th and one place to 12th respectively.

With Williamson not having played Test cricket since March because of a right knee injury, Head has a chance of getting to the No. 1 spot by the end of the fourth Ashes Test, to be played at Old Trafford from July 19. He has already scored 266 runs in three Ashes Tests so far, 116 of them coming in the last one.

While Head sparkled, Steven Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Joe Root had below-par outings at Headingley, and that meant a drop in the rankings for them. All of them moved down one spot - Smith to fourth, Labuschagne to fifth, and Root to sixth - and made room for Babar Azam to get to No. 3.

The Headingley Test wasn't a high-scoring one, and that was down to some special bowling performances, especially from Mark Wood. Playing his first Test since December 2022, Wood picked up 5 for 34 and 2 for 66, winning the Player-of-the-Match award in the process, and rose nine spots to No. 26th. His colleague Stuart Broad put in a good show too, picking up five wickets. That took him up four places to sixth.

For the Australians, Pat Cummins returned 6 for 91 in the first innings, while Mitchell Starc had 2 for 59 and 5 for 78. Cummins stayed at No. 2, not far behind the top-ranked R Ashwin, while Starc went up three positions to 11th.