LONDON, CMC:
BRIAN LARA might have been the losing captain when the West Indies crashed to defeat in the opening Test against South Africa at Johannesburg, but his purposeful double-hundred returned him to the No. 1 position in the latest world batting ratings.
The West Indies captain scored a stroke-filled 202 in the West Indies first innings that propelled him up one place back into the No. 1 spot, knocking fellow left-hander Matthew Hayden of Australia out of that position and into third position.
India's Rahul Dravid rose to the No.2 position after he too, completed a double-hundred, a monumental 233, that helped set his team up for a glorious four-wicket victory in the second Test against Australia at Adelaide.
Ricky Ponting, another double hundred Test scorer over the past week (he hit 242 in the first innings against India at Adelaide), dropped one notch to No. 4 behind Hayden with the out-of-action Pakistan protagonist Inzamam-ul-Haq remaining in the No. 5 slot despite his inactivity.
Notably, Sachin Tendulkar drops out of the top 10 list of batsmen for the first time since 1993, following a poor run of form since the Test series in New Zealand in 2002-03.
West Indies' Shivnarine Chanderpaul moved up four notches to enter the Top 20 again, following his 34 and 74 in the Johannesburg Test; West Indies vice captain Ramnaresh Sarwan dropped four places to 31; opening batsman Wavell Hinds is unchanged at 37th; Chris Gayle's lame performance saw him drop two places to 41; Ridley Jacobs plunged four places to 52; and Daren Ganga rose three places to 53.
The other West Indians appearing in the top 100 are Carl Hooper at 35th, Marlon Samuels at 54th and Omari Banks at 91.
In the bowling, there is no change in the top five bowling positions with Sri Lanka's mercurial off-spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan leading the way, followed by South Africa's Shaun Pollock, Australia's Glenn McGrath, Pakistan's Shoaib Akhtar and Australia's Jason Gillespie.
Makhaya Ntini's nine-wicket performance against West Indies at Johannesburg has catapulted him from 12th to sixth with New Zealand's Darryl Tuffey, India's Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, along with South Africa's Jacques Kallis completing the top 10.
