ICC rankings: Virat Kohli steady at 4th, Shikhar Dhawan rises to 6th

Dubai A lacklustre World Cup performance notwithstanding Virat Kohli remained the highestplaced Indian batsman at fourth even as Shikhar Dhawan rose a rung tosixth in the latest ICC ODI rankings issued todayShikhar DhawanApart from Kohli and Dhawan Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the other Indian batsman to be inside the top10 hanging on to the eighth spot Opener Rohit Sharma made significant strides up the order as he jumped seven places to be joint 12th with Australian swashbuckler Steve Smith and Pakistans MisbahulHaqRohit scored 330 runs in the tournament Australia retained the ODI Shield and won USD 175000 after finishing as the numberone ranked side on the April 1cutoff date India collected USD 75000 for finishing second in the team rankings Among the bowlers Australias Mitchell Starc has surged to the top for the first time in his career following a stellar performance in the World Cup that also fetched him the player of the tournament awardThe 25yearold leftarm fast bowler finished ICCs pinnacle 50over tournament as jointleading wickettaker with New Zealands Trent Boult 22 wickets including two for 20 in eight overs in the final against New Zealand This performance has helped Starc to rise two places and claim the numberone position for the first timeStarc had entered World Cup in seventh position and during the course of the tournament he gained 147 ratings points He currently sits on 783 rating points which is also his careerbest rating and was achieved during the final played in front of over 93000 spectators Australias James Faulkner who was adjudged the playerof the final has also made an upward movement along with Indias Umesh YadavYadav has broken into the top 20 for the first time in his career following his 15 wickets in the series including four for 72 in the semifinal against Australia Yadav has rocketed 16 places to join Englands James Tredwell in 18th positionIn the rankings for ODI batsmen South Africa captain AB de Villiers continued to lead the charts and has also become the 11th batsman overall and second South African after Hashim Amla to break the 900point markIn ranking terms 900 points marks out a player as truly great De Villiers achieved the milestone during the semifinal against New Zealand when he scored 65 not out He is now eighth on the list behind Viv Richards 935 Zaheer Abbas 931 Greg Chappell 921 David Gower 919 Dean Jones 918 Javed Miandad 910 and Brian Lara 908 Desmond Haynes 900 completes the tally of 11 batsmenThere is no change in the top five batters but the biggest movers in the latest rankings are Smith and Martin Guptill who were yesterday named in the Team of the World Cup Smith finished the series with 402 runs with one century and four halfcenturies while Guptill belted the highest World Cup individual score to date while scoring 237 not out on the way to finishing as the leading rungetter with 547 runsAs a result Smith has jumped 19 places to a careerhigh 12th position while Guptill has finished in 22nd place after rising 12 places The curtain fell on the ODI careers of Michael Clarke Brendan Taylor MisbahulHaq Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene Clarke finished his career in 29th spot up by three places Taylor 20th down by four places Misbah in 12th up by one place Sangakkara second and Jayawardene 34th down by five placesIn the Reliance ICC Player Rankings for ODI allrounders Tillakaratne Dilshan has retained his top spot followed by Shakib Al Hasan of Bangladesh The only change in the top 10 was the entry of South Africas JP Duminy who has moved up four places to ninth spot Pakistans Shahid Afridi has signed off on his ODI careeras sixth ranked allrounder In the batting chart he was 44th while 30th in the bowling table