India lose ground despite win

Not good enough: a series win for India but they still fall down in the rankings © Getty Images

India may have won its first series in the Caribbean for 35 years, beating the West Indies 1-0 over four matches, but it has not stopped Rahul Dravid's side slipping down the Test Championship table.

India has lost two points and a place in that table and now sits in fourth spot, below Pakistan, and the reason for that demotion is simple: the side failed to live up to its pre-series ranking. It began the tour a massive 39 rating points and five places ahead of the West Indies and when one team is rated that far above another it should expect to win by a bigger margin than 1-0 in order to justify its place.

India's failure to do that has cost it rating points, dropping it to 109 (the same tally as Pakistan) and that was enough to see it slip below Inzamam-ul-Haq's side when the table was recalculated to three decimal places. India is now three points behind second-placed England and 22 points behind leaders Australia.

West Indies remain in eighth position but its better than expected performance in rating terms has seen it gain two points. Brian Lara's side now has 74 points, 23 adrift of Sri Lanka and New Zealand in sixth and seventh places respectively.

India's captain Rahul Dravid was outstanding in the decisive Test of the series in Jamaica and he remains in second place in the player rankings for batsmen. Dravid is now just 10 points short of his best mark and only one player, Australia's Ricky Ponting, lies ahead of him in the list.

Lara is in 10th spot, his lowest Test ranking for five years, after a modest series which saw him average 26.37. He is the only West Indies batsman in the top 20 with Chanderpaul slipping four spots while Chris Gayle is 24th.

Each side has one player in the top 10 of the rankings for bowlers with India's Anil Kumble a non-mover in eighth spot while Corey Collymore ventures into the top 10 for the first time, finding himself up seven places to 10th in the list.