Lara stands alone at top of batting heap

LONDON: West Indies captain Brian Lara has solidified his position as the world’s number one batsman after powering his side to a series win over Sri Lanka with his authoritative match-winning half-century on Sunday. The 34-year-old Lara, who returned to the top spot last week after a double century in the first Cable and Wireless Test against the tourists, extended his lead to almost 30 points after steering the West Indies to victory in Jamaica. He scored 80 not out and engineered the seven-wicket win, which secured a 1-0 series win for the West Indies after the First Test was drawn. Corey Collymore, who captured seven wickets in the second innings for the “Man-of-the-Match” and “Man-of-the-Series” awards, made a huge leap to enter the bowlers’ top 30 on the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) world list.
 
Lara, a double world batting record holder, climbed to 887 points on the computerised rating system, for a healthy lead over Australians Matthew Hayden (859) and Ricky Ponting (849) with Indian star Sachin Tendulkar lying fourth on 843 points. Hayden, Ponting, England’s Michael Vaughn (5th) and South African Jacques Kallis (6th) will all be in action this summer, but need big performances to topple Lara, who holds the individual Test (375) and First-Class (501 not out) batting world records. Shivnarine Chanderpaul, at number 17, and Ramnaresh Sarwan (24th) are the only other West Indies players in the batting top 30. South Africa’s Shaun Pollock remains the top bowler, ahead of Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, who has displaced Australian Glenn McGrath as number two. Collymore leapt a remarkable 39 places to be 30th on the bowlers’ list and his teammate Fidel Edwards enters the table in 60th place after a first innings five-wicket haul in his debut Test last weekend. Mervyn Dillon, at 15th, and Jermaine Lawson (24th) are the other West Indies bowlers in the top-30.

RANKINGS
Batting: 1 Brian Lara (West Indies); 2 Matthew Hayden (Australia); 3 Ricky Ponting (Australia);
4 Sachin Tendulkar (India); 5 Michael Vaughn (England); 6 Jacques Kallis (South Africa);
7 Adam Gilchrist (Australia); 8 Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pakistan); 9 Rahul Dravid (India); 10 Herschelle Gibbs (South Africa)
Bowling: 1 Shaun Pollock (South Africa); 2 Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka); 3 Glenn McGrath (Australia); 4 Harbhajan Singh (India); 5 Jason Gillespie (Australia); 6 Andrew Caddick (England); 7 Makhaya Ntini (South Africa); 8 Shoaib Akhtar (Pakistan); 9 Anil Kumble (India);
10 Jacques Kallis (South Africa).