Chance for Dhoni and India to regain lost rankings

Dilshan and Kohli achieve career-best seventh and 13th positions

Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his India side will aim to regain their rankings in the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Player and Team Rankings when they participate in the Asia Cup which begins in Dambulla on Tuesday.

Dhoni slipped to third behind Australia's Michael Hussey and South Africa's AB de Villiers in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for ODI batsmen after deciding to take a rest and skip the tour to Zimbabwe where Sri Lanka won the triangular series after defeating Zimbabwe by nine wickets in the final.

As a player loses half a per cent of his ratings points for every ODI he misses, Dhoni conceded 16 ratings points and slipped to third position.

However, he still has number-one ranked Hussey and second-placed de Villiers firmly within his sights as he trails the Australian by eight ratings points and the South African by just two ratings points.

With India scheduled to play a minimum of three ODIs in Sri Lanka, a couple of good performances with the bat will certainly help Dhoni regain his number-one position. Additionally, Dhoni will be hoping to extend as much of an advantage over Hussey as possible as the Australian left-hander has six ODIs (one against Ireland and five against England) coming up to not only reclaim the top spot but also put himself well clear of the field.

Also aiming to maintain their upward movements will be Sri Lanka's Tillakaratne Dilshan and India's Virat Kohli who achieved career-best rankings to date after good performances in Zimbabwe last week.

Dilshan was the leading run-getter in Zimbabwe with 328 runs for which he was rewarded with a jump of seven places that has put him in sixth position while Kohli scored 168 runs to jump to 13th position after a leap of seven places.

Also moving up the order after the Zimbabwe series are Brendon Taylor of Zimbabwe and Rohit Sharma of India. Taylor scored 295 runs and as such, he vaulted 13 places to sit alongside Brad Haddin of Australia in 40th position while Sharma's series aggregate of 260 runs has given him a lift of 44 places and puts him in 47th position which he shares with Pakistan's Kamran Akmal.

However, Suresh Raina, who captained India in Zimbabwe, had a disappointing series as he slipped to 20th position after scoring 83 runs in four matches.

Other batsmen who will be in Sri Lanka and will be eyeing improvements to their rankings are Kumar Sangakkara (12th), Virender Sehwag (14th), Gautam Gambhir (24th), Shoaib Malik (26th), Salman Butt (29th), Shakib Al Hasan (32nd), Mahela Jayawardena (34th), Umar Akmal (37th) and Shahid Afridi (50th).

In the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for ODI bowlers, Sri Lanka boasts two bowlers inside the top 20 while Pakistan has two and Bangladesh and India have one each.

Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan is the highest-ranked bowler in second place while Sri Lanka's Nuwan Kulasekara is in third spot. Kulasekara's team-mate Muttiah Muralidaran will enter the tournament in 20th position and will be hoping to avoid a slip out of the top 20 for what would be the first time since March 1996.

Harbhajan Singh represents India in the top 20 in 11th spot whereas Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi is seventh and his countryman Saeed Ajmal is in 18th spot.

Bowlers sitting outside the top 20 are Zaheer Khan (23rd), Mashrafe Mortaza (24th), Mohammad Asif (26th), Praveen Kumar (27th), Ravindra Jadeja (33rd), Syed Rasel (49th) and Mohammad Aamer (47th).

In the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship, India will start in third place after dropping behind South Africa following its three losses in Zimbabwe.

However, it can regain the number-two spot as early as on Saturday 19 June if it wins both its matches against Bangladesh and Pakistan. If it manages to achieve this, it will join South Africa on 119 ratings points but will be placed higher after the ratings are calculated beyond the decimal point.

On the other side of the coin, if India beats Bangladesh but loses to Pakistan and Sri Lanka it will slip to 116 ratings points.

Pakistan also has a chance to improve its seventh position by one place but to make it happen it will have to win all its league matches.