Amir vaults into career-best 17th position
Four-wicket defeat means England cannot go ahead of Australia in Test Championship at the end of this series
Pakistan's fast bowler Mohammad Amir has rocketed into his career-best 17th position in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test bowlers after playing a leading role in his side's four-wicket victory over England in The Oval Test which concluded on Saturday.
Man of the match Amir took 1-49 and 5-52 in the Test and was awarded with a jump of 14 places in the rankings, which puts him just behind Paul Harris of South Africa and makes him the third Pakistan fast bowler in the top 20.
Amir has played a total of 13 Tests in which he has taken 45 wickets. As such, he is still in the qualification period for bowlers as a bowler qualifies for a full rating when he reaches 100 Test wickets.
This means he could potentially edge closer or even overtake 14th-ranked Jerome Taylor of the West Indies depending on how he performs in the fourth and last Test, which starts at Lord's from Thursday. Amir now trails Taylor by six ratings points after earning 91 ratings points from The Oval Test.
Off-spinner Saeed Ajmal, who took 4-71 in the second innings after bagging 1-32 in the first, has also jumped nine places to claim a career-best 48th position while Wahab Riaz, who took 5-63 and 1-40 on his debut Test, has entered in 60th position.
For England, off-spinner Graeme Swann has moved up one place to regain his second position on the bowling chart.
Swann, who had match figures of 7-118, had first climbed to second position in March this year after the first Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong. Swann, who took his 100th Test wicket in the first innings when he caught Yousuf off his own bowling, earned 24 ratings points that has put him on a career-high 820 ratings points.
However, there is bad news for the England pace trio which has slipped in the latest rankings which were released on Sunday morning.
James Anderson has fallen one place to fifth position, Stuart Broad has dropped three places to 11th spot and Steven Finn has slipped three places to 35th position.
In the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen, Pakistan's Mohammad Yousuf, Umar Akmal and Azhar Ali, and England's Alastair Cook and Matt Prior all rose up the rankings.
Yousuf, who scored 56 and 33, has climbed two places to 14th position with India's Gautam Gambhir firmly within his sights, Umar has jumped six places to share 41st position with Australia's Phillip Hughes and Azhar has vaulted 28 places to 55th spot.
England opener Cook's century in the second innings has given him share of 28th position with Ramnaresh Sarwan of the West Indies while Prior has gained two places to rise to 33rd position following his knock of 84 not out in the first innings.
Batsmen losing ground in the latest rankings are Kevin Pietersen on 21st (down by one place), Andrew Strauss on 23rd (down by two places), Paul Collingwood on 30th (down by seven places), Kamran Akmal on 49th (down by four places) and Eoin Morgan on 64th (down by seven places).
Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara leads the batting table with Virender Sehwag of India second and Michael Clarke of Australia third.
There is no change in the top five of the Reliance Mobile ICC Player rankings for Test all-rounders with Jacques Kallis of South Africa leading the field.
Meanwhile, England's four-wicket defeat has ended its chances of moving ahead of fourth-placed Australia in the Reliance Mobile ICC Test Championship.
Although the Championship table will be updated after the end of the series, England had needed to win the series by 3-0 or better to climb to fourth position. Now if England wins the Lord's Test, it will gain one ratings point and will go to 112 but in case of a defeat, it will slip to 108 ratings points.
Pakistan, in contrast, will drop to 83 ratings points if England wins the series 3-1 but will jump to 90 ratings points if the series end in a two-all draw.
To see how England and Pakistan Test series results might affect the Reliance Mobile ICC Test Championship table, check out the predictor function on the ICC website at http://www.icc-cricket.com/match_zone/test_predictor.php.
ICC Test Player Rankings (as of 22 August, after the third Test between England and Pakistan at The Oval)
Batsmen
| Rank | (+/-) | Player | Team | Points | Ave | HS Rating |
| 1 | (-) | K.Sangakkara | SL | 874 | 56.85 | 938 v Eng at Kandy 2007 |
| 2 | (-) | Virender Sehwag | Ind | 859 | 54.14 | 866 v SL at Galle 2010 |
| 3 | (-) | Michael Clarke | Aus | 814 | 50.71 | 855 v Eng at Headingley 2009 |
| 4 | (-) | S.Tendulkar | Ind | 809 | 56.02 | 898 v Zim at Nagpur 2002 |
| 5= | (-) | S.Chanderpaul | WI | 807 | 49.28 | 901 v NZ at Napier 2008 |
| 6 | (-) | M.Jayawardena | SL | 807 | 54.06 | 883 v Ind at Ahmedabad 2009 |
| 7 | (-) | Jacques Kallis | SA | 791 | 55.07 | 935 v NZ at Centurion 2007 |
| 8 | (-) | Graeme Smith | SA | 787 | 50.49 | 843 v Eng at Johannesburg 2010 |
| 9 | (-) | Simon Katich | Aus | 772 | 46.83 | 807 v Pak at Lord's 2010 |
| 10 | (-) | Ross Taylor | NZ | 766 | 43.13 | 775 v Pak at Wellington 2009 |
| 11 | (-) | AB de Villiers | SA | 762! | 45.50 | 762 v WI at Bridgetown 2010 |
| 12 | (-) | VVS Laxman | Ind | 761! | 47.22 | 761 v SL at Colombo (PSS) 2010 |
| 13 | (-) | G.Gambhir | Ind | 758 | 52.83 | 886 v SL at Kanpur 2009 |
| 14 | (+2) | M.Yousuf | Pak | 751 | 52.95 | 933 v WI at Karachi 2006 |
| 15 | (-1) | T.Samaraweera | SL | 748! | 53.72 | 748 v Ind at Colombo (PSS) 2010 |
| 16 | (-1) | Hashim Amla | SA | 745 | 45.10 | 842 v Ind at Kolkata 2010 |
| 17= | (-) | Younus Khan | Pak | 717 | 50.09 | 880 v SL at Lahore 2009 |
| 18 | (+1) | Ricky Ponting | SL | 717 | 54.66 | 942 v Eng at Adelaide 2006 |
| 19 | (-) | Tamim Iqbal | Ban | 707*! | 40.13 | 707 v Eng at Old Trafford 2010 |
| 20 | (+2) | Chris Gayle | WI | 670 | 40.31 | 704 v Eng at Antigua 2009 |
Bowlers
| Rank | (+/-) | Player | Team | Points | Ave | HS Rating |
| 1 | (-) | Dale Steyn | SA | 887 | 23.13 | 897 v Ind at Ahmedabad 2008 |
| 2 | (+1) | Graeme Swann | Eng | 820! | 28.14 | 820 v Pak at The Oval 2010 |
| 3 | (-1) | M. Asif | Pak | 787 | 23.67 | 818 v Eng at Trent Bridge 2010 |
| 4 | (+1) | Morne Morkel | SA | 739*! | 30.78 | 739 v WI at Bridgetown 2010 |
| 5 | (+1) | James Anderson | Eng | 737 | 32.02 | 745 v Pak at Edgbaston 2010 |
| 6 | (-) | Mitchell Johnson | Aus | 732 | 28.87 | 825 v Eng at Cardiff 2009 |
| 7 | (-) | Zaheer Khan | Ind | 707 | 32.98 | 729 v SA at Kolkata 2010 |
| 8 | (-) | Harbhajan Singh | Ind | 648 | 31.62 | 765 v NZ at Wellington 2002 |
| 9 | (+1) | Shakib Al Hasan | Ban | 640*! | 32.52 | 640 v Eng at Old Trafford 2010 |
| 10 | (+1) | Makhaya Ntini | SA | 638 | 28.82 | 863 v Ind at Durban 2006 |
| 11 | (-3) | Stuart Broad | Eng | 620* | 35.04 | 697 v SA at Durban 2009 |
| 12 | (-) | Daniel Vettori | Nz | 609 | 33.86 | 681 v Aus at Auckland 2000 |
| 13 | (-) | Doug Bollinger | Aus | 601* | 24.65 | 616 v NZ at Hamilton 2010 |
| 14 | (+1) | Jerome Taylor | WI | 580* | 35.64 | 717 v Eng at Kingston 2009 |
| 15 | (-1) | Umar Gul | Pak | 578 | 33.69 | 627 v WI at Karachi 2006 |
| 16 | (-) | Paul Harris | SA | 576* | 37.10 | 705 v Eng at Centurion 2009 |
| 17 | (+14) | M.Amir | Pak | 574*! | 31.11 | 574 v Eng at The Oval 2010 |
| 18 | (-1) | Peter Siddle | Aus | 573* | 31.53 | 617 v Eng at The Oval 2009 |
| 19 | (-1) | Jacques Kallis | SA | 559 | 31.59 | 742 v Eng at Headingley 2003 |
| 20 | (-1) | R.Sidebottom | Eng | 550* | 28.24 | 769 v SA at Lord's 2008 |
All-Rounders
| Rank | (+/-) | Player | Team | Points | HS Rating |
| 1 | (-) | Jacques Kallis | SA | 442 | 616 v Pak at Durban 2002 |
| 2 | (-) | Daniel Vettori | NZ | 393 | 412 v Pak at Napier 2009 |
| 3 | (-) | Shakib Al Hasan | Ban | 334 /* | 355 v Eng at Mirpur 2010 |
| 4 | (-) | Graeme Swann | Eng | 287*/ | 327 v Ban at Chittagong 2010 |
| 5 | (-) | Virender Sehwag | Ind | 272 /*! | 272 v SL at Colombo (PSS) 2010 |
*Indicates a provisional rating
For information on the ICC Player Rankings go to: www.reliancemobileiccrankings.com.