India drops down but Tendulkar climbs up in ICC rankings

Johannesburg, Sep 9 (UNI) Another sad news for Team India just a day after the heartbreaking series loss to England with it dropping to the sixth spot behind Pakistan in the LG ICC ODI rankings, while the only consolation being master blaster Sachin Tendulkar's nine place jump to the 12th spot in the batting chart.

The 3-4 defeat in the just-concluded Natwest Series, India lost two rating points in the LG ICC ODI Championship table and shares equal points with Pakistan at 108 points, but by virtue of three decimal points, Pakistan occupies the fifth spot.

However, Tendulkar with scores of 17, 99, 8, 55, 71, 94, 30 in the seven match ODI series against England, earned 17 rating points and jointly occupies the 12th position with South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis, which is also his highest position in the rankings since March 2006, when he briefly touched 11th position.

Apart from Tendulkar, 'Men in Blue' captain for the Twenty20 World Cup, Mahendra Singh Dhoni who scored only one half century in the decider at Lord's, slipped two places to the 19th position, while teammate Yuvraj Singh gained one place and is at the 18th position.

However, captain Dravid has slipped to the 15th position losing two places after failing to score in the last four ODI's of the series with scores of 1, 24, 4, 0.

Meanwhile, Australian captain Ricky Ponting continues his dominance in the batting chart followed by England's Kevin Pietersen and Mike Hussey of Australia.

However, no Indian bowlers find a place in the top twenty of the recently released bowling chart with Agarkar losing seven places to be placed at the 25th position, while Zaheer Khan gained three places to reach the 27th spot.

South African all rounder Shaun Pollock is leading both the bowling chart (874 points) and all-rounders list (472 points) with a huge lead of 100 points from his competitors.

In the bowling chart, Pollock is followed by Australia's Nathan Bracken (794 points) and New Zealand's Shane Bond (790 points) in second and third positions respectively, while in all-rounders list, England's Andrew Flintoff (372 points) is second and Jacques Kallis (370 points) of South Africa is at the third position.

UNI