South Africa pacer Dale Steyn moved to the top of the ICC Player Rankings for Test bowlers after another wonderful display of fast bowling in India.
The 24-year-old from Phalaborwa has enjoyed a rapid rise in the rankings since making his debut against England in Port Elizabeth at the end of 2004. Since then he has taken 117 wickets in just 41 innings at an average of 21.41, including another eight scalps during the second Test in Ahmedabad, which his team won by an innings and 90 runs.
Steyn now has 897 ratings points and is level with Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan, who has been top of the bowlers' list since February 2006. Indeed, the iconic spinner has not been out of the top five bowlers since mid-2000. He has now, however, dropped below 900 ratings points for the first time since June 2006.
Steyn ranks 22nd in the all-time list of Test bowlers, 12 places behind the career best of compatriot Shaun Pollock but ahead of other great South African bowlers such as Allan Donald and Hugh Tayfield, who are both ranked in joint-26th position.
With one more Test left in the current series in India, Steyn has the opportunity to go top of the table on his own and also to become just the 20th bowler in the history of Test cricket to pass the magic 900-point mark in the ratings.
Other bowlers to have peaked at 897 ratings points include Ray Lindwall of Australia, Jim Laker of England and the West Indies' Lance Gibbs, putting Steyn in some pretty impressive company.
What makes Steyn stand out from the rest is that he has taken just 22 matches to reach the top. By contrast, it took Pollock 33 matches to do it and Donald 41.
The news is not so good for Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara, who has slipped from the top of the ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen after a relatively disappointing two-Test series in the West Indies.
His place at the top is taken by Australia's Michael Hussey, who is currently the only batsman in the world with more than 900 ratings points. As Hussey is still qualifying for a full rating, his points tally at the top is likely to continue to rise when he next plays Test cricket, scheduled to be against the West Indies in May.
It is very congested at the top of the batting list with just 32 ratings points separating Hussey at the top and Mohammad Yousuf of Pakistan in fifth position. Ricky Ponting of Australia and South Africa's Jacques Kallis share second spot, with Sangakkara fourth.
Kallis will be pushing Hussey all the way in the third and final Test against India at Kanpur and if he can reproduce the sort of performance that saw him score 132 in Ahmedabad, he could even take over at the top.
Kallis's team-mate AB de Villiers achieved a career-best rating following his unbeaten double-century against India. The 24-year-old is now in 21st position and will be eyeing a place in the top 20 as a realistic goal for the third Test.
Proteas captain Graeme Smith is up one spot to 14th while several India batsmen, including Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, suffer the slide after a forgettable Test match from their point of view.
The news is better for India spinner Harbhajan Singh, who has moved back into the top 20 in the ICC Player Rankings for Test bowlers. He took four wickets in the only SA innings of the match and moved up four places in the rankings, past Kallis, Umar Gul of Pakistan and New Zealand's Daniel Vettori.
More positive news for India is that Irfan Pathan has moved into the top five in the ICC Player Rankings for Test all-rounders after being one of the few players in his team that put up a resistance against the South African onslaught in Ahmedabad.
After a match-winning innings of 86 not out against Sri Lanka in Port-of-Spain, Shivnarine Chanderpaul has moved up two places to joint-seventh position along with Mahela Jayawardena of Sri Lanka. Ramnaresh Sarwan, who shared a crucial 157-run partnership with Chanderpaul, has moved up eight places to 22nd position after his magnificent 102 under enormous pressure.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka has slipped two places to fifth position on the ICC Test Championship table after only managing to draw the two-match series with the West Indies. Jayawardena's team lost three ratings points after the series ended 1-1 and such is the congested nature of the table at present, it meant that it slipped down below South Africa and England, which are now lying in third and fourth positions, respectively.
Good news for the West Indies is that it has narrowed the gap in the Test Championship to 14 points between itself and New Zealand. Prior to England's 2-1 series win over the Black Caps and the West Indies' drawn series with Sri Lanka, there were 20 points separating NZ in seventh spot and the men from the Caribbean in eighth.
India must win the third Test against South Africa if it is to avoid losing its second position in the table to the visitors. If Anil Kumble's team draws or loses the match, which begins in Kanpur on Friday, it will drop two full places to fourth from its current position in second.
The ICC Test Championship table is updated only at the end of each series.
LG's four-year sponsorship of ICC Player and Team Rankings ended on 31 March and the new sponsor will be announced in due course.
