Joe Root Reclaims No. 1 Test Batter Spot As Matt Henry Joins Bumrah At Top Of Bowling Rankings

England's Joe Root and New Zealand fast bowler Matt Henry have climbed to the top of the latest ICC Men's Test Player Rankings following the second Test of the ICC World Test Championship series between England and New Zealand at The Oval.

Root returned to the No. 1 position among Test batters after scores of 46 and 77 in the match, which New Zealand won by 253 runs to level the series 1-1. The former England captain overtook team-mate Harry Brook and Australia's Travis Head to begin his 12th stint as the world's top-ranked Test batter .

The Yorkshire duo of Root and Brook have exchanged the No. 1 ranking six times over the past 18 months since Root first displaced Kane Williamson from the top spot.

In the bowling rankings, Henry rose to joint first place alongside Indian pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah after producing a match-winning haul of 11 wickets for 109 runs at The Oval. Both bowlers now sit on 870 rating points .

Henry's rating tally is the second-highest achieved by a New Zealand bowler, behind only legendary pacer Richard Hadlee , who reached 909 points in 1985. Among New Zealand cricketers, only Williamson's peak rating of 919 in 2021 and Hadlee's mark surpass Henry's current tally.

Other notable gains in the Test batting rankings came from New Zealand players Glenn Phillips , who climbed eight places to 31st, Henry Nicholls , who jumped 13 spots to 40th, and Rachin Ravindra , who returned to the top 10. England's Jofra Archer and Jacob Bethell also improved their positions in the bowling rankings.

In the ICC Men's ODI Rankings , India captain Shubman Gill moved up three places to second among batters after scoring 238 runs in India's 3-0 series sweep of Afghanistan. Ishan Kishan , Yashaswi Jaiswal , Prasidh Krishna , Arshdeep Singh , and Afghanistan's Hashmatullah Shahidi and AM Ghazanfar also registered ranking gains.