India dethrone Australia to become World No.1 Test team in latest ICC rankings ahead of WTC final

Team India have dethroned Australia to become the new World No.1 Test team in the latest ICC rankings announced on Tuesday, May 2.

Rohit Sharma and Co. now have 121 rating points against Australia’s 116 in the annual rankings update, which includes all the series completed since May 2020. The series before May 2020 and the subsequent series weighed 50 and 100 percent, respectively.

The development comes months after India beat Australia 2-1 in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. They also registered a 2-0 series win over Bangladesh last December.

It comes as a massive boost for India ahead of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) final, scheduled to be played at the Oval starting June 7.

Australia’s reign at the top of the rankings comes to an end after 15 months. They first rose to the summit of the Test rankings under Pat Cummins following their 4-0 win in the Ashes at home.

Meanwhile, England have risen to third spot in the latest ICC rankings following their sensational win record under new captain Ben Stokes.

---

KL Rahul and Jaydev Unadkat's injuries add to India’s miseries ahead of the WTC final

Team India have suffered a couple of injury setbacks in the form of KL Rahul and Jaydev Unadkat ahead of the World Test Championship final.

Rahul suffered a hamstring injury during their game against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the ongoing IPL 2023. India are already without the injured Shreyas Iyer, who was replaced by Ajinkya Rahane.

Among the bowlers, Jaydev Undakat suffered a shoulder injury during a net session. The left-arm pacer injured his left shoulder after landing on the elbow in his follow-through in the nets.

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, KS Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohammad Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, and Jaydev Unadkat.