McGrath & Warne on top of the world, Flintoff now top-all rounder
Australia bowlers Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, now with 1150 Test wickets between them, occupy the top two slots in the LG ICC Test Player Rankings after the Johnnie Walker Super Series Test match against the ICC World XI
Australia bowlers Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, now with 1150 Test wickets between them, occupy the top two slots in the LG ICC Test Player Rankings after the Johnnie Walker Super Series Test match against the ICC World XI.
Both players move up a slot from their previous ranking with McGrath taking over top position and Warne now on 874 points, his highest ranking since the Boxing Day Test against Sri Lanka in December 1995 when he stood at 876.
McGrath and Warne leapfrog Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, who slips to third spot despite taking five wickets for the ICC World XI in the Sydney Test match, and that trio are well clear of the rest.
Fourth in the bowling list is Andrew Flintoff and although he finished on the losing side in Sydney, his seven wickets for the World XI have lifted him to his highest-ever points total.
That, in turn, lifts him ahead of Jacques Kallis in the table for Test all-rounders and he is now the top ranked all-rounder in both forms of the game with those rankings calculated by multiplying batting and bowling points together.
Warne and McGrath are not the only Australians to enhance their rankings as a result of the Sydney Test match.
Captain Ricky Ponting moves up three places to joint second in the batting list, level with Brian Lara of the West Indies and just behind South Africa's Kallis.
And Matthew Hayden moves back into the top ten to six, up ten places, after his man of the match performance in Sydney which included his second Test hundred in successive matches.
Just outside the top ten batsmen, Adam Gilchrist's first innings of 94 helps him move back up the rankings after a subdued Ashes series and he now sits at number 11 following a rise of three spots.
The biggest mover in the bowling rankings has happened outside the top ten with leg-spinner Stuart MacGill rising ten places to number 20 on the list.
MacGill, playing only his second Test of the year, both of them in Sydney, took nine wickets against the ICC World XI.
A complete list of the LG ICC Rankings can be found at www.icc-rankings.com
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