England’s Joe Root has leapfrogged Ashes rivals Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head to top the Test batting rankings.
The Yorkshireman’s performance in scoring a combined 164 runs – 118 not out and 46 – at Edgbaston in the first Test defeat to Australia propelled him five places up the International Cricket Council’s rankings.
Labuschagne dropped two places to third after making just 13, including a first-ball duck in the first innings, with Head falling to fourth despite a first-innings half-century.
Edgbaston man-of-the-match Usman Khawaja, the fourth Australian in the top 10 along with Steve Smith, moved up two places to seventh after scores of 141 and 65.
England’s next-best performer is Harry Brook, who rose five spots to 13th on the back of scores of 32 and 46.
James Anderson retained his place as the second best bowler in the world, despite a disappointing display in Birmingham, while Ollie Robinson moved into the top five with five wickets in the first Test.
Meanwhile, following a thrilling final day at Edgbaston, England and Australia have both been fined 40 per cent of their match fees and deducted two World Test Championship points for slow over-rates.
Despite serving up a breathless finale in which the tourists snatched a two-wicket victory on a see-saw fifth evening, both teams have been punished for failing to get through their overs quickly enough.
Captains Ben Stokes and Pat Cummins pleaded guilty to the offence and accepted the proposed sanctions, so there was no need for formal hearings, the ICC said.
As the match was the first in the new WTC cycle, that means England’s reward for the attacking tactics that moved the game towards its dramatic conclusion despite long rain delays is to sit on minus two in the table.
Australia picked up 12 points for their Cummins-inspired win, so drop back to 10.
All 22 players have also lost 40 per cent of their match fees, which equates to around £6,000 for the English contingent.
Bayern star Kane scores 400th senior goal
Harry Kane surpassed the 400-goal mark for his senior career as his double helped Bayern Munich beat Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 at the Allianz Arena on Saturday.
Kane moved within one of the milestone as he put Bayern 1-0 up after just nine minutes, coolly finishing from close range after Konrad Laimer's pass had set him up.
Then, after Frankfurt levelled through Hugo Ekitike, Kane slotted home a penalty with typical aplomb following a foul on Thomas Muller to move himself onto 400 career goals and ultimately lead Bayern to victory.
Kane scored 280 of his goals in 435 appearances for Tottenham, overtaking Jimmy Greaves to become the club's all-time leading scorer when he netted for the 267th time in Spurs colours against Manchester City last February.
His tally of 213 Premier League goals, meanwhile, puts him just 47 behind the competition's all-time leader Alan Shearer, who scored 260 times for Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United.
Kane is also the most prolific player in England's history, his 62 goals for the Three Lions coming in 89 international appearances.
He memorably missed the chance to surpass Wayne Rooney's previous record of 53 when he blazed a penalty over the crossbar in the Three Lions' quarter-final defeat to France at the 2022 World Cup, only to clinch his place in history in a Euro 2024 qualifier against Italy three months later.
The very first goal of Kane's senior career came in League One during a loan spell with Leyton Orient as they thrashed Sheffield Wednesday 4-0 in January 2011.
That was the first of five goals Kane scored in O's colours, while he also netted nine times in a loan spell with Millwall in 2011-12 and twice during a stint with Leicester City the following season.
IPL: Fraser-McGurk leads the way as Capitals hold off Mumbai
Delhi Capitals withstood Mumbai Indian’s late surge and held on for a 10-run victory at Arun Jaitley Stadium.
Jake Fraser-McGurk top-scored with 84 – hitting 50 off just 15 balls – while Tristan Stubbs (48) and Shai Hope (41) also chipped in with important contributions as the Capitals set a target of 258.
Mukesh Kumar (3/59) and Rasikh Salam (3/34) did their best to halt Mumbai’s revival, but they turned up the pressure to require 25 runs from the final over.
However, despite Luke Wood and Piyush Chawla’s best efforts, Delhi held out for a second successive win.
Data debrief
Wood almost made amends after conceding 68 runs during the opening innings – the joint-most in the IPL this season, matching Reece Topley’s tally against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Tilak Varma led Mumbai’s attempted revival with 63 for his sixth half-century in the IPL, though they have all come in defeats
Chase outdone by opposite number Paudel as West Indies A suffer four-wicket loss to Nepal
West Indies A’s tour of Nepal got off to an unfortunate start, after they suffered a four-wicket loss to their host in a high scoring opening fixture of their five-match Twenty20 series at the Tribhuvan University International Cricket Ground in Kirtipur, on Saturday.
Set a formidable 204 by West Indies A, Nepal’s thrilling victory, which was set up by a captain’s knock from Rohit Paudel, etched their names in the history books, as they successfully got to their target at 206-6 with two balls to spare.
Paudel smashed a 54-ball 112, including 10 fours and two sixes to see his team to a 1-0 lead in the series, which West Indies Head coach Darren Sammy said offers his team a chance to define roles and personnel more clearly for their ICC Men’s T20 World Cup squad.
However, the Caribbean side’s all-round effort was found wanting, as only captain Roston Chase (74), Alick Athanaze (47) and Keacy Carty (38) offered any resistance with the bat, while only Obed McCoy (2-34) and Matthew Forde (2-49) had some semblance of success with the ball.
Scores: West Indies A 204-5 (20 overs); Nepal 206-6 (19.4 overs)
Asked to take first strike, after losing the toss, West Indies A suffered an early blow, as they lost Johnson Charles (zero) off the last ball of the opening over, with 16 runs on the board. Andre Fletcher (13) stuck two sixes off five balls, before he too departed via the run-out route, leaving West Indies A at 43-2 in the fourth over.
However, Athanaze went about business, striking three sixes and five fours in a 25-ball knock, as he put on 43 for the third wicket with Chase, prior to his demise. From there, Chase and Carty added another 60 runs in a fourth-wicket stand that defined the innings.
Carty’s 38 off 26 balls, included two fours and three sixes, while Chase, who anchored the innings with a captain’s knock, struck nine fours and two sixes in his 46-ball 74. Kadeem Alleyne, on 14, and Keemo Paul, one, were left not out.
No Nepal bowler took more than one wicket.
With runs on the board, West Indies A would have felt confident of wrapping up a win, even more so, after Forde and McCoy combined to remove openers Anil Sah (five) and Kushal Bhurtel (16) to have Nepal at 38-2 in the fifth over.
West Indies remained in the ascendancy when Fletcher and Charles combined to run out Kushal Malla (16), leaving their host on the ropes at 82-3 at the halfway mark.
However, Paudel showed class, in not only reviving his team’s innings, but pushed them all the way with some aggressive stroke play, assisted by wayward bowling from West Indies A attack at times. Dipendra Singh Airee (24) offered support to his captain in getting Nepal across the line for a famous victory.
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