Muralidaran and Sangakkara continue historic progress in LG ICC Player Rankings

Murali is just fourth bowler ever to reach 920 points; Sangakkara becomes first Sri Lankan batsman to pass the 900 mark; Australia stretches lead at top of Test Championship after annual update

Two of Sri Lanka's best players of all time have made history on the LG ICC Test Player Rankings following their team's 3-0 series win over Bangladesh last week.

Muttiah Muralidaran has become only the fourth Test bowler in history to reach 920 rating points and is the highest rated bowler for 24 years. He is now just two rating points behind Pakistan great Imran Khan and is fast catching up on England's Sydney Barnes and George Lohmann, who are first and second, respectively, in the all-time Test bowlers' list.

Meanwhile, Kumar Sangakkara is stamping his own mark on history as he enjoys a fine run of recent form that continued in two double hundreds during the series with Bangladesh.

Sangakkara becomes the first Sri Lankan batsman to pass the magic 900 rating points mark and he has moved up to 22nd in the all-time list for Test batsmen. He remains third in the current LG ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen but is continuing to close the gap on the two players currently ahead of him, Mohammad Yousuf and Ricky Ponting.

The 29-year-old became just the sixth player in history to score double hundreds in successive Tests when he put the Bangladeshi bowlers to the sword last week in Kandy.

This feat was first achieved by Walter Hammond against Australia in 1928/29 and since then has been matched by Don Bradman (who managed it three times against England in 1930, 1934 and 1936/7), India's Vinod Kambli (against England and Zimbabwe 1992/23), Graeme Smith of South Africa (against England in 2003) and Australia captain Ricky Ponting (against India in 2003/04).

Australia legend Bradman has scored the most double hundreds in Tests - 12 - but there are only two other players ahead of Sangakkara's tally of six - Brian Lara (West Indies, nine) and Hammond (England, seven). Sangakkara is now level with fellow countryman Marvan Atapattu and Pakistan's Javed Miandad.

He has now moved ahead of India captain Rahul Dravid who has five scores of 200 or more in Tests.

Incidentally, Sangakkara's Test double hundreds have come against four different opponents - Pakistan, Zimbabwe, South Africa (twice) and Bangladesh (twice) - with four made in home matches (two at the Sinhalese Sports Club, both against South Africa, the P.Saravanamuttu Stadium in the second Test against Bangladesh and now at Kandy).

His other two double tons were compiled in Lahore (against Pakistan) and Bulawayo (versus Zimbabwe).

There was very little movement in the latest rankings with Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardena going up another place to 12th position, following his 165 in Kandy, his 18th Test hundred, overtaking Pakistan's Inzamam-ul-Haq in the process.

Bangladesh's Shahriar Nafees has improved by 12 places and now stands in 51st position on the log. Nafees is now the second placed Bangladesh batsman in the rankings, just two places behind former captain Habibul Bashar, who dropped six places in the latest list.

In the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test bowlers, Muralidaran has stretched his lead from South Africa's Makhaya Ntini in second position with Anil Kumble of India and another Protea, Shaun Pollock, back in joint-third place.

Pollock also features in the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test all-rounders. The Kwa-Zulu Natal player, who turned 34 today (Monday), is in third spot behind team-mate Jacques Kallis at the top and England's Andrew Flintoff in second.

Meanwhile, the annual update of the LG ICC Test Championship has seen Australia stretch its lead at the top and it now stands 26 rating points clear of second-placed England.

Sri Lanka is another eight points further back having moved up two places to third position and South Africa is also up two places from sixth spot to fourth. Pakistan is the big loser after the update having dropped three places from third to sixth.

The annual update is carried out to ensure the LG ICC Test Championship table continues to reflect recent form with older results being discarded. As such, the new table only includes results from series completed after 1 August 2004.

The update is always scheduled to take place on 1 August each year but as no series are set to finish ahead of that date, it can be carried out now. By updating the table now it means that England and India will know what progress they can make before their series starts on Thursday.

One result of the LG ICC Test Championship update is that Zimbabwe has dropped off the main table as it has only played eight Tests since that date. Test match rankings have historically been based on a minimum of 10 Tests played by each Member over the three to four-year period.

For the remainder of the teams, series completed in the past year (from 1 August 2006 to date) receive a 100 per cent weighting while series that finished between 1 August 2004 and 31 July 2006 are weighted at 50 per cent.