India poised to topple South Africa
ICC Champions Trophy will give Dhoni's team the chance to take over as number-one ODI side in the worldAustralia slips to third position and England jumps two spots to fourth as New Zealand drops to fifth and Pakistan sixth following annual updateShakib Al Hasan goes to third position in bowling rankings as Kumar Sangakkara returns to top 10 batsmen
India has moved up to second place on the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship table following the annual update.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team has jumped ahead of Australia and is now just one ratings point behind number-one-ranked South Africa after the adjustment.
The annual update is carried out to ensure the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship table continues to reflect recent form with older results being discarded.
The table reflects all ODIs between the teams represented on the table that took place since 1 August two years ago. All matches played until the start of next August will be added to this table, so by then the ratings will be based on three years of results and, over those three years, matches played in the most recent year will carry most weight.
Next August the first year of results will be dropped and this pattern is repeated each August, with the oldest of the three years of results removed to be gradually replaced with results of matches played over the following 12 months.
Thus, once a year, the rankings change overnight without any new ODIs necessarily being played. India's rise in this year's update reflects its outstanding record during the past 12 months and also the dropping of a much poorer set of results in the year ending July 2007.
England has fared well as a result of the update as it rises two places from sixth to fourth spot in the latest team rankings. As a consequence, New Zealand falls from fourth to fifth position with Pakistan dropping to sixth spot after losing the first two of the ongoing ODI series in Sri Lanka.
Indeed, if Younus Khan's team loses the next ODI in Dambulla on Monday, it will fall below Sri Lanka into seventh spot albeit with an immediate chance to retake sixth place in the fourth and fifth ODIs of the series.
Meanwhile, Kumar Sangakkara has returned to the top 10 of the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for ODI batsmen after helping his side to victory in the first and second ODIs of the current series against Pakistan.
The news is not so good for Mohammad Yousuf of Pakistan who slips two places to 15th position while his team-mate Shoaib Malik and Sri Lanka's Sanath Jayasuriya also lose ground to joint-19th spot.
Their loss is India's and New Zealand's gain, however, as Gautam Gambhir and Ross Taylor both move up to joint-17th position in the latest rankings.
The batting list is still headed by the Indian duo of Dhoni in first place and Yuvraj Singh in second position. Australia's Michael Hussey is currently third.
Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan continues his rise up the rankings and has gained two more places to third in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for ODI bowlers. Shakib has benefited from the fact that Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralidaran has slipped two spots in the latest rankings and now sits in fifth position.
The other main mover in the top 20 of the bowling list is Pakistan's Shahid Afridi, who drops three places to 12th position after the first matches of the ongoing series in Sri Lanka.
Afridi's woes also extend to the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for ODI all-rounders as the 29-year-old slips one place to fourth with Shakib still the man in possession of number-one position.
New Zealand's Jacob Oram benefits from Afridi's slip, moving up two places to third position. Afridi's team-mate Shoaib Malik has dropped out of the top five, slipping four places to seventh spot in the all-rounders' list. Australia's James Hopes moves into fifth position as a consequence.
Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship (as of 2 August, after the annual update)
| Rank | Team | Rating | ||
| 1 | South Africa | 127 | ||
| 2 | India | 126 | ||
| 3 | Australia | 119 | ||
| 4 | England | 111 | ||
| 5 | New Zealand | 110 | ||
| 6 | Pakistan | 107 | ||
| 7 | Sri Lanka | 106 | ||
| 8 | West Indies | 78 | ||
| 9 | Bangladesh | 54 | ||
| 10 | Ireland | 27 | ||
| 11 | Zimbabwe | 26 | ||
| 12 | Kenya | 0 | ||
| Batsmen | ||||
| Rank | Player | Team | Points | HS Rating |
| 1 | MS Dhoni | Ind | 828 | 828 v WI at St Lucia 2009 |
| 2 | Yuvraj Singh | Ind | 784 | 794 v WI at Kingston 2009 |
| 3 | Mike Hussey | Aus | 767 | 863 v NZ at Perth 2007 |
| 4 | S.Chanderpaul | WI | 759 | 793 v Eng at Guyana 2009 |
| 5 | Chris Gayle | WI | 756 | 804 v Aus at Mumbai 2006 |
| 6 | AB de Villiers | SA | 752 | 753 v Aus at Port Elizabeth 2009 |
| 7 | Virender Sehwag | Ind | 732 | 774 v NZ at Auckland 2003 |
| 8 | Graeme Smith | SA | 731 | 792 v Ban at Dhaka 2008 |
| 9 | Hershelle Gibbs | SA | 712 | 750 v SL at Durban 2003 |
| 10 | Jacques Kallis | SA | 707 | 816 v WI at Johannesburg 2004 |
| 10 | K.Sangakkara | SL | 707 | 760 v Ind at Rajkot 2007 |
| Bowlers | ||||
| Rank | Player | Team | Points | HS Rating |
| 1 | N Kulasekara | SL | 730 | 749 v Pak at Lahore 2009 |
| 2 | Kyle Mills | NZ | 697 | 723 v Aus at Melbourne 2009 |
| 3 | Shakib Al Hasan | Ban | 695 | 695 v WI at St Kitts 2009 |
| 4 | Daniel Vettori | NZ | 694 | 790 v Eng at Christchurch 2008 |
| 5 | M Muralidaran | SL | 693 | 913 v NZ at Sharjah 2002 |
| 6 | Nathan Bracken | Aus | 677 | 806 v SL at St George's 2007 |
| 7 | Mitchell Johnson | Aus | 672 | 726 v Ban at Darwin 2008 |
| 8 | M Mortaza | Ban | 661 | 678 v Ind at Port-of-Spain 2007 |
| 9 | Stuart Broad | Eng | 660 | 701 v SA at Trent Bridge 2008 |
| 10 | Andrew Flintoff | Eng | 656 | 755 v Ban at Dhaka 2003 |
| All-Rounders | ||||
| Rank | Player | Team | Points | HS Rating |
| 1 | Shakib Al Hasan | Ban | 419 | 420 v WI at Dominica 2009 |
| 2 | Andrew Flintoff | Eng | 346 | 544 v SL at The Rose Bowl 2004 |
| 3 | Jacob Oram | NZ | 335 | 383 v WI at Queenstown 2008 |
| 4 | Shahid Afridi | Pak | 334 | 360 v Ind at Dhaka 2008 |
| 5 | James Hopes | Aus | 333 | 340 v Pak at Dubai 2009 |
