Virat Kohli closes in on Steve Smith in Test rankings, Mayank Agarwal and Ravichandran Ashwin also rise 

Virat Kohli's gargantuan knock of 254* against South Africa has helped him come within one point of Australian Steve Smith’s in the latest ICC rankings update. Kohli currently stands at 936 points and is just one point away from his career-best points tally of 937 points which he achieved in August 2018. Without a century in the last ten innings, Virat Kohli’s ratings had dipped below the 900-run mark for the first time since January 2018.

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Indian opener Mayank Agarwal’s purple patch with the bat has helped him break into the top-20 for the first time. His double-century in the first Test at Visakhapatnam was followed by a well-calculated ton at Pune. He has climbed eight places to reach the 17th position. India’s Cheteshwar Pujara is fourth with 817 points.

Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja has climbed twelve places to reach the 40th spot in the batsmen rankings. A six-wicket haul in the second match at Pune has moved Umesh Yadav six places to 25th while Ravichandran Ashwin has also gained three spots to be seventh in the bowler rankings.

A strong outing with the bat has helped South Africa’s Vernon Philander and Keshav Maharaj to climb up the charts and occupy 82nd and 115th positions respectively.

Virat Kohli’s seventh double-hundred saw him take the fourth spot in the list of most double-hundreds in Test cricket. He also became the fourth-fastest to reach 7,000 runs in Test cricket in terms of matches played. He took only 81 Test matches to complete the feat, four fewer than Sachin Tendulkar.

On the other hand, a perfect showing in the recently concluded Ashes series where Steve Smith scored 774 runs at an unimaginable average of 110.58 in ten innings saw Smith top the rankings. Smith reached his highest tally of 947 points against South Africa in Durban in 2018. Kohli, who is the number one batsman in ODIs will try to go top when he leads India in the third and final Test at Ranchi on 19th October.

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