Joe Root has played a pivotal role in achieving a very impressive victory by England over Australia, with more than a day to spare during the first Ashes test of the season. As a result of this, he has gained a big lead in the latest International Cricket Council Test rankings for batsmen, released on Sunday (July 12).

It is pertinent to add that England had registered a big 169-run victory over Australia in the first Ashes Test in Cardiff. Therefore, Steven Smith had to relinquish his short reign at the top the tally.

England’s could attain this commendable victory much to Root’s 134 in a first-innings total of 430.

Root had also contributed a score of 60 in the second innings and got a jump of three places to the fourth spot – getting into the top five for the first time.

He has overtaken Kumar Sangakkara, Angelo Mathews and Younis Khan.

However, Smith has to hand over his Number 1 position to AB de Villiers. Interestingly, Smith had entered the Cardiff Test with 913 points, but after his identical returns of 33 and 33 in the match, he dropped 12 points to fall seven points behind de Villiers. Since AB De Villiers will miss the two-Test series against Bangladesh, there are possibilities that a couple of strong performances could bring Smith back on top of the tree.

So far as India’s equation is concerned, our only batsman Virat Kohli, who was standing at the bottom of list has moved upwards and now stands at ninth position.

Sadly no Indian bowler has found a place among the top ten test bowlers.

Here is the list of top ten test batsman in the ICC Test Rankings –

1 A.B. de Villiers – SA – 908 points

2. S.P.D. Smith – AUS – 901 points

3. H.M. Amla – SA – 891 points

4. J.E. Root – ENG – 884 points

5. K.C. Sangakkara – SL – 874 points

6. A.D. Mathews – SL – 860 points

7. Younus Khan – PAK – 829 points

8. K.S. Williamson – NZ – 813 points

9. V. Kohli – IND – 755 points

10. D.A. Warner – AUS – 749 points