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- By Parinda News Bureau, April 17, 2006, 10:56 IST
India's 5-1 win over England has put them third in the ICC one-day rankings, their highest position ever. Also, Mahendra Singh Dhoni's excellent form has made him the second best among ODI batsmen.
India has beaten New Zealand and Pakistan on the charts by winning 17 of their last 22 matches.
Rahul Dravid's team is now just three points behind second-placed South Africa. This implies that if India win both their upcoming ODIs against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi, they will reduce that margin to a single point.
Australia is perched at the top with a lead of 13 points.
This is India's highest position since the rankings were launched in October 2002. A year ago, they were languishing at the eighth spot.
Dhoni, who was fifth in the rankings before the England series, gained 177 runs at an average of 59 to gain three places on the charts and is now behind Australian captain Ricky Ponting.
Yuvraj Singh (9th), Dravid (11th) and Sachin Tendulkar (18th), who missed the series through injury, are the other Indians in the top 20.
Irfan Pathan is fourth on the bowlers' list behind Shaun Pollock Glenn McGrath and Shane Bond. And the leading wicket-taker in the ODI series against England, Harbhajan Singh is up six places to seventh.
For England, Kevin Pietersen made significant strides up the rankings as he entered the top ten gaining eight places to seventh slot.
Pietersen is England's highest-ranked batsman with Flintoff slipping five places to 19th and Marcus Trescothick, who missed the entire Test and ODI series for personal reasons, dropping to joint 20th.
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