A blistering century against Pakistan in the first Test in Barbados has propelled West Indies star Brian Lara to the top of the ICC Test batting rankings ahead of South Africa's Jacques Kallis.

Lara's teammate and West Indies' captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul also moved up five places to eighth following his scores of 92 and 153 not out in the same match.

Chanderpaul now has a batting ranking over 800 points for the first time in his career.

West Indies, who won the first Test, will improve their rating in the Test Championship from 73 to 78 points if they clinch the two-Test series 2-0.

Also Read Rediff Test rankings: SA looking good again Rediff ODI rankings: Pakistan looking good Duckworth-Lewis vs Jayadevan

For England there were small improvements in the rankings of both Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick following their centuries against Bangladesh.

However, the relatively low rankings of the Bangladesh bowlers meant that the batsmen got much less credit for these scores than they would if they make centuries against Australia later in the summer.

Similarly in the bowling, wickets for Andrew Flintoff and Matthew Hoggard slightly improved their rankings.

Hoggard has climbed to tenth while Flintoff shares the 11th spot with teammate Steve Harmison.