Vernon Philander and Hashim Amla were the biggest gainers in the latest Reliance ICC Rankings after their splendid performances in the just concluded Test series against England. Philander has achieved a career-best second position for Test bowlers after inspiring South Africa to a 51-run victory over England in the third Test at Lord's, which gave the Proteas a 2-0 series win, and, with it, the number-one position on the Reliance ICC Test Championship table.
He bagged a total of 7 wickets at Lord's and was adjudged the man of the match. The performance helped him leapfrog Pakistan off-spinner Saeed Ajmal into second spot and put him just 29 ratings points behind team-mate Dale Steyn.
England's Steven Finn who impressed everyone with his pace and bounce broke into the top 20 for the first time in his career. He had match-figures of 8/149 in the final Test. He is now placed 16th (up 10 places) and is the fourth England bowler after James Anderson (fifth), Stuart Broad (eighth), Graeme Swann (13th) and Tim Bresnan (20th) to find a place inside the top 20 bowlers.
In the rankings for Test batsmen, South Africa's Hashim Amla, who was adjudged South Africa's player of the series for his aggregate of 482 runs (average 120.5), reclaimed his number-two position, which he last held in February 2010.
Amla now trails number-one ranked Kumar Sangakkara of Sri Lanka by 23 ratings points.
Batsmen losing ground after the Lord's Test include Jacques Kallis in fourth (down by two places), Graeme Smith in seventh (down by one place), Alastair Cook in 12th (down by four places), Jonathan Trott in 16th (down by two places), Ian Bell in 18th (down by one place) and Andrew Strauss in 30th (down by one place).
There is also a change in the guard in the rankings for Test all-rounders, where Kallis's drop means Shakib Al Hasan of Bangladesh is back in number-one position.
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