4-1 loss drops India two spots in LG ICC ODI Championship table

India's 4-1 ODI series loss to the West Indies has seen it slide down two places in the LG ICC ODI Championship table.

And the defeat has also been a sobering experienced for two of the rising stars of the Indian side, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Irfan Pathan, as both players have dropped down the LG ICC Player Rankings.

Rahul Dravid's side went into the series in third position in the table, just three rating points behind second-placed South Africa and with a chance to cut that lead to only one point if it won all five matches.

That looked possible given India's excellent ODI form coming into the series, with 18 wins from its previous 24 matches, but after it won the first match, the wheels came off, four defeats followed and India has now slipped back to fifth in the table.

The 4-1 loss has seen it drop five rating points and that is enough to place it below Pakistan and New Zealand, as well as South Africa and runaway leaders Australia, which is 13 points clear at the summit.

Dhoni began the series in second place in the LG ICC Player Rankings for ODI batsmen, within touching distance of the top spot, which he held briefly last month before he was overtaken by Adam Gilchrist of Australia.

However, a return of only 95 runs from five innings has seen Dhoni drop two places to fourth and he now trails not only Gilchrist but also the West Indies' Ramnaresh Sarwan, up nine spots to second position, and Australia captain Ricky Ponting, currently in third place.

Like Dhoni, Pathan has endured a series to forget, something reflected in the LG ICC Player Rankings.

Also like Dhoni, he started the tour in second place, this time in the bowling list, but six wickets in four matches has seen him slide to seventh, although there are relatively few rating points between many of the players in that top group.

With the bat, Pathan is down ten spots to 57th place while, in the LG ICC Player Rankings for ODI all-rounders, he has slid two spots and now finds himself in fifth position.

Captain Dravid has dropped out of the batting top 10, down three places to 12th, but it is not all doom and gloom for India in the player ratings.

Virender Sehwag's excellent form has seen him move into the top 20, up six places to 18th, Yuvraj Singh remains in 10th place and Mohammad Kaif is up eight spots to 46th position.

And Ajit Agarkar, left out of the Test squad despite excellent ODI form, has jumped back into the top 20 bowlers, rising eight places to 13th while Harbhajan Singh is also in that top 20, down one spot in joint 11th, alongside South Africa's Makhaya Ntini.

The good news for the West Indies is led by the rise of Sarwan, who only entered the top 10 earlier this month after a series of excellent displays against Zimbabwe.

His 273 runs in the series with India, including one hundred and two fifties, means he is now breathing down the neck of leader Gilchrist at the top of the batting list.

Below him, Chris Gayle is up three places to 11th position while Dwayne Bravo, who made successive half-centuries in the last two matches of the series, rises 30 places to 74th.

Ian Bradshaw climbs into the bowling top 10 for the first time, up nine places to eighth spot, and he is the first West Indies bowler to reach that top 10 since Reon King five years ago.

And Bradshaw is not the only bowler on the rise among his team. Gayle is up eight spots to 30th, Fidel Edwards climbs 17 places to 42nd, Marlon Samuels is up 24 places to 64th and Jerome Taylor has climbed 10 spots to 81st position.

Gayle is also on the way up in the LG ICC Player Rankings for all-rounders, up two places to third.

The bowling list is headed by South Africa's Shaun Pollock ahead of Shane Bond of New Zealand, while Pollock also tops the all-rounder list, clear of England's Andrew Flintoff.

The West Indies has not been able to improve on its eighth position in the LG ICC ODI Championship table but Brian Lara's side has gained seven rating points because of the 4-1 series win. It means it is now just five points behind seventh-placed England in the table.

Full details of the current LG ICC ODI Championship and how future results will impact on the table, as well as the LG ICC Player Rankings can be found here