Lara storms up one-day rankings

LONDON: West Indies cricket captain Brian Lara has jumped seven places and re-enters the top five One-Day International (ODI) batsmen on the PriceWaterhouseCoopers ratings list. After an outstanding ODI series against Sri Lanka last week, Lara is now up to number four in the world. His teammate Marlon Samuels was the biggest mover in the latest rankings, leaping 11 places, from 34th, to 23rd in the world. In the West Indies/Sri Lanka encounters, Lara scored a series-best 194 runs, including a majestic 116 in the second ODI and averaged 97 to move up behind India’s world number one Sachin Tendulkar, Australian Ricky Ponting, and South African Herschelle Gibbs  are on the list. Chris Gayle, at number six, and Ramnaresh Sarwan, dropping seven places to number nine, are the only other West Indies players in the batting top 10. The 22-year-old Samuels was the second most prolific scorer in the recent series, totalling and averaging 130 runs, with unbeaten knocks of 45 and 56 in two of his three innings, to rush into the top-30. Mervyn Dillon, at number 17 in the ODI rankings, is no longer the sole West Indies bowler in the top 20, now that Corey Collymore has made his first entry there at number 20. South African Shaun Pollock remains the world’s number one ODI bowler, ahead of Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan, with Australian Glenn McGrath third.

PWC Top-10 Rankings
Batsmen: 1 Sachin Tendulkar (IND); 2 Ricky Ponting (AUS); 3 Herschelle Gibbs (SA); 4 Brian Lara (WI); 5 Adam Gilchrist (AUS); 6 Chris Gayle (WI); 7 Michael Bevan (AUS); 8 Matthew Hayden (AUS); 9 Ramnaresh Sarwan (WI); 10 Virender Sehwag (IND).
Bowlers:1 Shaun Pollock (SA); 2 Muttiah Muralitharan (SL); 3 Glenn McGrath (AUS); 4 Makhaya Ntini (SA); 5 Chaminda Vaas (SL); 6 Brett Lee (AUS); 7 Shane Bond (NZ); 8 Jason Gillespie (AUS); 9 Zaheer Khan (IND); 10 Harbhajan Singh (IND).