Australia’s Marnus Labuschagne was dethroned from the top spot in the Test Rankings by England’s star batter Joe Root after a six-month reign as the No. 1 Test batter. Following the end of the thrilling first Ashes Test played at Edgbaston in Birmingham, the rankings experienced a significant shakeup at the top.
On the strength of dominant at-bats, Labuschagne ascended to the top rank in December 2022. However, Root’s recent performances as a Test specialist and the start to 2023 have caused the latter to take the top slot. Even though England lost the first Test, Root put on a fantastic individual performance, scoring 118* and 46 to help the home team battle to the last finish at Edgbaston.
Since Ben Stokes took over as captain, it appeared as though Root was being somewhat held back by the responsibility of leading. The Bazball philosophy gave him permission to play his shots freely and he has even adapted to this latest gameplay and even transformed his batting accordingly. In the process, the flamboyant right-hander scored his 30th Test century to claim the top spot in the Test rankings as the top batter.
However, Labuschagne dropped two spots to third place with 877 rating points after returning pitiful scores of 0 and 13 against the English team. Kane Williamson of New Zealand took second place in the most recent rankings.
Here are some of the tweets
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— Raja Babu (@GaurangBhardwa1) June 21, 2023
Pretty sure Marnus will bounce back ,people who call him home track bully hasn't seen the debut of him
— Archer (@poserarcher) June 21, 2023
Hope so but he has been very average in away tours like india,Pak,SL and in WTC final also didn't contributed
— Sahil95 (@Sahil9513) June 21, 2023
Greatest batter of this generation ???
— Bakri Player (@91_of_79) June 21, 2023
Labuschagne is a fraud, can’t play outside of Aus ?
— Haque ?? (@midtownndriverr) June 21, 2023
— Cric Irfan (@Irfan_irru_17) June 21, 2023
He is not a batter exact word to represent the class of this player is No 1 BATSMAN
— Cric Fan (@Cricketfan2ict) June 21, 2023
Ravichandran Ashwin remains at the top of the bowler’s Test ranking
While all is going on, India’s Ravichandran Ashwin continues to lead the bowler rankings in Test cricket despite being benched for the World Test Championship final against Australia, which they ultimately lost by 202 runs. Ashwin is in first place with 860 points, followed by James Anderson of England in second place with 829 points. With no change in their rankings, Indian bowlers Jasprit Bumrah (772) and Ravindra Jadeja (765) held down the eighth and ninth spots, respectively.
Virat Kohli, the centre of India’s batting lineup, dropped one spot to take up position 14, while Rohit Sharma, the captain, is in position 12. Cheteshwar Pujara continued to hold down the 25th spot.
