Babar Azam returns to ICC Test top 10 after two half-centuries against West Indies
Babar Azam has returned to the top 10 of the ICC Test rankings for batters for the first time since September 2024. He scored two half-centuries against West Indies recently.
Pakistan skipper Babar Azam has returned to the top 10 of the ICC Test rankings following his decent outing in the Test series against the West Indies.
Babar Azam scored two half-centuries in the recently concluded Test series against the Caribbean nation and finished as the top run-getter with 193 runs from four innings. In the first Test in Trinidad, Babar scored 23 runs in the first innings and followed it up with a knock of 58 in the second.
He did even better in the second Test in Port of Spain. Babar scored 88 in the first innings and followed it up with an unbeaten 24 in the second innings.
This is for the first time since September 2024 that the right-handed batter has featured in the top 10 of the ICC batters' rankings in Tests. The 31-year-old currently has 716 rating points.
Babar Azam, though, has not scored a Test century since December 2022, when he scored 161 in the first innings of the first Test against New Zealand in Karachi.
Pakistan’s next assignment is a three-match Test series against England that will get underway in Leeds on 19 August.
How Indians have fared in the latest ICC Test rankings
India wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant, on the other hand, slipped one place down to 14th. He now has 705 rating points.
Skipper Shubman Gill remained in seventh place with 743 rating points, whereas Yashasv'i Jaiswal, with 733 rating points, remained in ninth place.
Australia's Travis Head continued to lead the batters' charts in Tests with 853 rating points. England's Harry Brook, with 852 rating points, is right behind the Aussie big-hitter.
Pacer Jasprit Bumrah, who will miss the upcoming series against Sri Lanka due to injury, continues to lead the bowlers' rankings in Tests with 870 rating points. The Gujarat speedster is the lone Indian to feature in the top 10 rankings for bowlers in the longest format.
Ravindra Jadeja, with 446 rating points, continues to lead the all-rounders' charts. Washington Sundar remains in seventh place with 244 rating points, whereas Axar Patel has jumped one spot to 11th with 198 rating points.
India will take on Sri Lanka in a two-match series in Sri Lanka, with both Tests part of the 2025-27 World Test Championship (WTC) cycle.
With the race for the WTC final now heating up, the ICC Test rankings, too, could witness many more multiple changes.
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PN Vishnu is a contributor with the LiveMint Sports team, where he primarily covers cricket, football and other major sporting events. A passionate sports journalist with nearly a decade of experience in digital media, Vishnu has been an ardent follower of sports for more than 10 years. While he enjoys covering a wide range of disciplines, his biggest sporting passions remain cricket and football. He is also a devoted supporter of Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the Indian Premier League and Manchester United in English football. <br><br> Vishnu pursued a Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism from the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ), Chennai, in 2016 and graduated in 2017. Since then, he has built an extensive career in sports journalism, working with leading media organisations including Deccan Chronicle and Firstpost. In 2025, he worked for CricXtasy for six months before joining LiveMint in February 2026. <br><br> Over the years, he has reported extensively on marquee sporting events such as the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the Indian Super League (ISL). His reporting has also provided opportunities to interact with some of the game's leading personalities, including India cricketers Yuzvendra Chahal and Dhruv Jurel. <br><br> Away from the newsroom, Vishnu enjoys unwinding with books, discovering new music and binge-watching television series.
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