Jayawardene displaces Sangakkara at top spot

Dubai: Big-scoring former Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene has perched himself atop the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen for only the first time in his career after an epic double-century in the drawn first Test against India at Ahmedabad earlier this week.

The 32-year-old from Colombo scored a masterly 275 — his sixth double-century in 108 Tests — to leapfrog teammate and captain Kumar Sangakkara and India opener Gautam Gambhir.

Jayawardene, who during his mammoth knock became only the ninth batsman to complete 9,000 Test runs, is just 17 points short of becoming only the 25th batsman overall to reach the 900-point mark which, in ranking terms, is the benchmark for top batsmen.

Before Jayawardene, Australia's Mike Hussey was the last batsman to reach the 900-point mark in the 131-year history of Test cricket when he achieved the rare distinction after the Sydney Test against India in January 2008.

Rivalry intensifies

Sangakkara scored 31 in Ahmedabad while Gambhir scored 1 and 114 which means that only seven points separate the two left-handers. With the second Test starting in Kanpur today, both the stylish batsmen would be aiming to stamp their superiority over the other.

On the list of top bowlers, the only change in the top 20 is Harbhajan Singh who has slipped one place to sixth in the latest rankings while the gap between number-one ranked Dale Steyn of South Africa and Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralidaran has opened from 20 points to 31 points. Harbhajan took 2-189 in the first Test while Muralidaran had match figures of 3-221.

There is no change in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test all-rounders with Jacques Kallis of South Africa continuing to lead New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori and Mitchell Johnson of Australia.