Younis Khan's rise in LG ICC Player Rankings ensures it's not all bad news for Pakistan

Pakistan's defeat against England at Headingley on Tuesday may have cost it the Test series and second spot in the LG ICC Test Championship table, but it is not all bad news for Inzamam-ul-Haq's side.

Vice-captain Younis Khan, who was named man of the match after scores of 173 and 41 in the 167-run loss, has moved up four places in the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen and is now third, a career-high ranking.

And both Younis and his fellow Headingley centurion Mohammad Yousuf, who added 363 together during Pakistan's first innings, have career-best tallies of rating points.

Yousuf, who made 192 and 8 in the third Test, remains in fourth spot in the rankings while captain Inzamam has slipped one place to seventh position.

Only Pakistan and Australia have three players in the top ten of the batting list with the latter line-up represented by captain Ricky Ponting at the top, along with Matthew Hayden in sixth position and Michael Hussey in eighth.

Ponting leads from India captain Rahul Dravid in second place.

England has three players inside the top 20 with its highest-placed representative Kevin Pietersen, up one spot to 11th after he scored his fifth Test hundred. Below him inside that select grouping is acting captain Andrew Strauss in 13th - he made his tenth Test hundred at Headingley - and Marcus Trescothick, who lies 15th.

One player who has a chance of joining that group after the fourth and final Test of the series, starting at The Brit Oval on 17 August, is Ian Bell, who has scored three hundreds in successive Tests.

Bell has risen six places after his latest three-figure score and now lies in join 24th position, alongside Chris Gayle of the West Indies.

England also has three players inside the top 20 of the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test bowlers although one of them, fifth-placed Andrew Flintoff, is absent injured and the other two, Matthew Hoggard (joint seventh with Shoaib Akhtar) and Stephen Harmison (11th) have both slipped downwards.

For Pakistan, aside from Shoaib, who is on the comeback trail after injury, leg-spinner Danish Kaneria lies 18th while Umar Gul, who took seven wickets at Headingley, rises to 39th spot, his first appearance in the top 40.

The other Test to finish on Tuesday was the thriller between Sri Lanka and South Africa in Colombo, which saw the home side edge home by one wicket as it chased down the highest winning fourth innings score in its history, 352.

Sri Lanka's captain Mahela Jayawardene led from the front with 123 in that winning effort, and it has consolidated his position in the top 10 of the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen.

Jayawardene lies 10th in that list, just behind ninth-ranked Kumar Sangakkara, who has slipped down one place. The next-highest ranked Sri Lanka batsman is Tillakaratne Dilshan in 32nd spot, although the veteran Sanath Jayasuriya is moving upwards again, climbing eight places to joint 36th, alongside England's Alastair Cook.

Sri Lanka's spin wizard Muttiah Muralidaran still leads the bowling list after a match haul of 12-225 at the P.Saravanamuttu Stadium while team-mate Chaminda Vaas lies 12th.

South Africa will look for positives from its match and series defeats and one of them is the performance of AB de Villiers, whose scores of 95 and 33 in the second Test have helped propel him up the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen.

De Villiers has climbed 10 places to 23rd spot, just ahead of another Protea batsman Herschelle Gibbs, another player moving in the right direction, up five places to 25th in the table.

Mark Boucher, who takes over the captaincy from Ashwell Prince for the ODI tri-series against Sri Lanka and India starting on 14 August, climbs eight places in the Test batting list to 54th position.

Makhaya Ntini remains in second place in the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test bowlers, although he was forced to miss the conclusion of the second match of the series with a hamstring injury.

Shaun Pollock lies 13th among the bowlers while Andre Nel, who was left out of the side for the second Test, is 17th and Dale Steyn moves into the top 50 for the first time, up five places to joint 47th alongside Sreesanth of India.

Pollock is unchanged in third place in the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test all-rounders behind the injured duo of fellow South African Jacques Kallis and Flintoff. Kallis lies fifth in the batting table.

Sri Lanka has consolidated its position in fifth place in the LG ICC Test Championship table as a result of its series win while South Africa has lost four rating points and is now just two points clear of seventh-placed New Zealand.

England's series success, which was guaranteed with the win at Headingley, will see it climb above Pakistan and back into second place in the table after the final match of the four-Test clash. The home side currently leads 2-0, also winning at Old Trafford, while the first Test at Lord's was drawn. Australia remains in top position.

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