Sunday, April 20, 2008

Sachin retains second spot in ODI ranking


Dubai: Sachin Tendulkar retained his second spot among batsmen while India were closed in by Pakistan for the fourth place in the championship table of the latest ICC rankings list Sunday.

Tendulkar has 777 rating points behind leader Graeme Smith of South Africa who is on 792 points while Australian skipper Ricky Ponting is at third with 770.

Pakistani Mohd. Yousuf is at fourth with 763 points while West Indies' Shivnarine Chanderpaul jumped five places to return to top five after his memorable performances against Sri Lanka at home.

India ODI skipper M S Dhoni is at 10th with 728 rating points.

Meanwhile, after their 5-0 whitewash against Bangladesh, Pakistan narrowed the gap with fourth-placed India to three ratings points.

South Africa (127), Australia (127) and New Zealand (113) are ahead of India (113).

The most significant change of the rankings was Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan slipping out of the top 10 bowlers in the Reliance Mobile ICC Rankings for the first time in over a decade.

Muralitharan, who was last out of the top 10 ODI bowlers in July 1997, skipped the ODI series which the West Indies won 2-0 and has now slipped to 11th below Pakistan's Shahid Afridi who climbed 11 places to enter the top 10 for the first time in his career after a successful series against Bangladesh in which he bagged 12 wickets.

No Indian is in the top 10 of the bowlers' list headed by New Zealand's Daniel Vettori, while Harbhajan is at 18th spot.

ODI action will resume in June when England takes on New Zealand in a five-match series from June 15.

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