Sarwan, second best one-day batsman

Three West Indians — Ramnaresh Sarwan, Chris Gayle and Brian Lara — are now rated among the world’s top 12 ODI batsmen, according to the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers rating.

In the batting, Sarwan jumped five places to be at joint world number two with Australia’s captain, Ricky Ponting, who dropped one place. India’s Sachin Tendulkar has replaced Ponting for the number one spot. Gayle has jumped three places to number six, Lara has moved up eight places to number 11 and Wavell Hinds has catapulted a whopping 32 places to be ranked at number 25. The improvement in the rankings of the West Indians followed their impressive showing in the last three matches of the just-ended seven-match C&W one day series against Australia. After going down 4-0, Brian Lara’s men won the last three matches including a thumping nine-wicket victory in the final encounter. Hinds, who played just five matches after being left out of the first two of the series, scored two centuries and topped the batting for either side to take the “Man-of-the-Series” award.

Among the world’s one-day bowlers, West Indian pacer, Mervyn Dillon moved up two places to number 15, while Gayle, whose offspin is of increasing value to the West Indies team, moved up 19 places to 25. Australia’s Glenn McGrath has dropped two places from the top position in the bowling and has been replaced jointly at the top by Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan and South Africa’s Shaun Pollock.