Kallis makes history in LG ICC Player Rankings

South Africa batsman Jacques Kallis has become only the 23rd player in history to achieve 900 rating points in the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen.

Kallis has joined the exclusive club following a prolific series against Pakistan in which he scored three hundreds and a fifty in four innings, playing a key role in his side's 1-0 success.

The right-hander's aggregate of 421 runs was the highest by any player in the series and his three hundreds have taken his career tally to 27, joint seventh in the all-time list alongside the Australia duo of Matthew Hayden and Allan Border.

Figures like that have lifted him to his career-high rating, as well as third place in the latest LG ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen.

Kallis has moved ahead of Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara and now has only Ricky Ponting of Australia and Pakistan's Mohammad Yousuf above him in the listings.

The quartet all stand at 900 rating points or above, a tally achieved only if the player is prolific over a long period of time, and it is the first time in history that four batsmen have stood at 900 points or above at the same time.

One player who never quite scaled the 900-point mark is Pakistan's Inzamam-ul-Haq, but he can still be proud of his facts and figures as he bids farewell to the Test arena.

The former captain, who retired after the drawn second Test in Karachi, had a career-high mark of 870 rating points, and for more than a decade his was the wicket opposition sides needed most.

And although he just failed to become the most prolific run-scorer in Pakistan Test history (his final aggregate of 8830 runs was two behind Javed Miandad), Inzamam still leaves the stage with more hundreds in Tests than any other Pakistan batsman - 25, two more than Yousuf and Miandad.

And his last listing in the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen sees him placed 14th with only Yousuf and Younis Khan (seventh) ahead of him among his fellow countrymen.

Only Yousuf and Miandad among Pakistan players achieved higher ratings in the LG ICC Player Rankings.

Like Pakistan, South Africa finished the series with three batsmen in the top 20 with, in addition to Kallis, captain Graeme Smith in 13th place (up four spots), one behind fellow left-hander Ashwell Prince.

Kallis has also maintained his stranglehold on top place in the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test all-rounders, clear of England's Andrew Flintoff (who has undergone a fourth operation on his injured left ankle) and team-mate Shaun Pollock.

In the bowling list, Proteas' pace bowler Makhaya Ntini still lies in second position behind Sri Lanka's talismanic spinner Muttiah Muralidaran but he has lost ground and rating points during the series.

Pollock drops two places to fifth after being left out of the side for the matches in Karachi in Lahore but two South Africa bowlers on the rise - albeit still outside the top 20 - are fast man Dale Steyn and left-arm spinner Paul Harris.

Harris took 12 wickets in the two Tests to suggest the Proteas may have found a long-term spin option at last and those figures are enough to see him placed 34th in the updated listings, while Steyn, with nine wickets, now lies 28th, five spots behind team-mate Andre Nel.

Pakistan has four bowlers in the top 20. The highest-placed of them is Shoaib Akhtar, eighth but currently out of action, while behind him is leg-spinner Danish Kaneria (13th and unchanged after 10 wickets in the series), Mohammad Asif (16th, down six places and now sidelined with an elbow injury) and Umar Gul, in 20th position.

In the LG ICC Test Championship table, South Africa has closed the gap on the sides directly above it.

Smith's line-up gained three rating points thanks to its series win and is now just two points behind India and Sri Lanka although it remains in fifth position.

Pakistan's series loss has cost it three rating points to drop to the seventh in the listing.

Australia still tops the table, 30 points ahead of England.