Steyn loses number one ranking

Dale Steyn has lost his place as number one ranked bowler to Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.

Johannesburg - South African paceman Dale Steyn missed out on being the number one ranked bowler at the end of the calendar year for the first time since 2008, as he lost his place to Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.

Despite Steyn picking up four wickets in the first innings against England in the Boxing Day Test in Durban, he pulled up with an injured right shoulder after 3.5 over in the second innings.

Steyn had started the Durban Test leading Ashwin by four points and now trails the India off-spinner by the same margin.

Ashwin, in contrast, has achieved the number-one spot for first time in his career.

Ashwin has finished 2015 as the most successful bowler with 62 wickets in nine Tests, and this is reflected in his ranking after he started the year in 15th position and slowly but surely moved to the top of the chart.

South African spinner Dane Piedt ended the year on a career high 59th place.

In the ICC Player Rankings for Test Batsmen, Kane Williamson, Joe Root, AB de Villiers, Steve Smith and David Warner had a chance to finish the year as the number-one ranked Test batsman after they were separated by 26 points in the lead up to the final Tests of the year.

But it was Australia captain Smith who finished at the summit. The 26-year-old has leapfrogged Kane Williamson of New Zealand, England’s Joe Root and AB de Villiers of South Africa into the top spot. De Villiers drops one spot to fourth in the rankings.

Smith, who last week won the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for the ICC Cricketer of the Year as well as the ICC Test Cricketer of the Year award, had entered the Melbourne Test in fourth position.

Smith, who was also named in the ICC Test and ODI Teams of the Year, is the third Australia batsman in the last decade after Ricky Ponting (2005 and 2006) and Michael Clarke (2012) to finish the year as the number-one ranked batsman. Other batsmen since 2005 to finish the year as the top batsman are Kumar Sangakkara (2007, 2010 and 2011), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (2008), Gautam Gambhir (2009) and de Villiers (2013 and 2014).

Smith also finished 2015 as the leading run-scorer with 1,474 runs. This performance is clearly reflected in his ranking; he started the year in fifth position, achieved the number-one position for the first time after the Kingston Test against the West Indies in June, before finishing the year on top of the tree after hovering inside the top five in the last quarter of the year.

African News Agency