Former India captain Virat Kohli's performance in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 caused him to continue his descent down the International Cricket Council (ICC) Test rankings after the fifth Test match against Australia. Kohli scored just 17 & 6 in the Sydney Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Kohli is now ranked 27th in the world, his lowest since December 2012 (36th) when he was barely a year old in Test cricket. That was also the last time Kohli was placed outside the top 25 Test batters in the world.
Australia's star Scott Boland who dismissed Kohli four times in the recent Test series against India got a sharp rise for his performance. Boland jumped a massive 222 rating points and 29 places to move into joint-9th among bowlers – a career-high. Boland's previous peak came when he was ranked 36th in the world in June 2023.
On the other hand, South Africa skipper Temba Bavuma who led the side in the New Year Test against Pakistan moved up to 6th in the batting rankings, a spot he has previously occupied in December 2024, and achieved a career-high rating of 769 points. Bavuma smashed 106 in the first innings in Cape Town as his side secured a 10-wicket victory against the Shan Masood-led side.
Another South Africa star Marco Jansen moved up to 2nd in the all-rounder rankings with a personal best of 294 rating points, following his contributions of 62*, 1-36 and 2-101 against Pakistan.
Pakistan's Babar Azam (12th) and India's Rishabh Pant (9th) also made gains of five and three spots respectively in the batting rankings.