Jasprit Bumrah Becomes First Indian Pacer to Reach No. 1 in ICC Test Rankings

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Jasprit Bumrah : The first pacer from India to be ranked #1 in the ICC Men’s Test bowlers rankings is Jasprit Bumrah, an ace bowler. After his team’s series-equalling 106-run victory against England in the second Test at Vishakhapatnam, he makes his first-ever ascent to the top of the Test rankings with his outstanding match stats of 9/91. He is the first bowler from India to do so.

In addition to taking three spots off of colleague Ravichandran Ashwin in the most recent Test bowling rankings, Bumrah’s nine-wicket haul earned him Player of the Match honours in the second Test.

The Test bowlers rankings have been updated. South Africa’s Kagiso Rabada, who leads the pace department despite missing the Proteas Test series in New Zealand, is still ranked second, while Ashwin, who has been ranked first since March 2023 took just three wickets for India in that same match.

After 34 Test matches and 10 five-fors for India, Bumrah has never finished higher than third. This is the first time he has kept the top spot.

India pacer tops the bowling charts in ICC Men’s Test Player Rankings for the first time 🤩https://t.co/FLqiGNGUTr
— ICC (@ICC) February 7, 2024

Two of those five-fors have come from Bumrah in Test matches this year; in his most recent outing against England, he struck for a magnificent six-for-61 after registering statistics of 6/61 against South Africa in Cape Town last month.
The only other Indian players to have topped the bowling statistics are Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Bishan Bedi Bumrah is only the fourth player and the first pacer to do so.

Bumrah is not the only Indian player to rise noticeably in the most recent rankings; colleague Yashasvi Jaiswal was also rewarded for his outstanding double hundred in the first innings of the Test match against England in Vishakhapatnam.