India's Mahendra Singh Dhoni has moved up to second place in the latest LG ICC Player Rankings for ODI batsmen while Rahul Dravid's side, which completed a 5-1 ODI series win over England in Indore on Saturday, has jumped two spots to third in the LG ICC ODI Championship table, their highest-ever placing.
Pakistan can overtake India and move into third place if they win both ODIs in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday. Two victories would give them 116 rating points and drop India to 114.
Dhoni began the series in fifth position in the listings but 177 runs at an average of 59, including 96 in Jamshedpur, has pushed him up the list and he is now just seven rating points behind Australia's Ricky Ponting, who tops the rankings.
India's triumph, which means they have won 17 of their last 22 ODIs, has seen them leapfrog New Zealand and Pakistan in the LG ICC ODI Championship table and they are now just three rating points behind second-placed South Africa, according to a statement sent by ICC from Dubai.
And if India can win both their upcoming ODIs against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi, on Tuesday and Wednesday, they will reduce that margin to just one point. Australia is 13 points clear of South Africa at the top of the table. Third place is India's highest position since the LG ICC ODI Championship table was launched in October 2002 and an indication of their progress is that a year ago, in April 2005, they were in eighth spot.
Dhoni is one of four India players in the top 20 for batsmen. Yuvraj Singh is ninth, Dravid is 11th and Sachin Tendulkar, who missed the entire series through injury, is 18th. Virender Sehwag, who scored 78 runs in five innings during the ODI series, has dropped seven places in the rankings and is now 28 th in the batting list. All-rounder Irfan Pathan, like Dhoni, is another India player who has made progress up the LG ICC Player Rankings.
The left-armer is now fourth in the bowling list, behind Shaun Pollock of South Africa, Australia's Glenn McGrath and Shane Bond of New Zealand and he has eased up to third in the ODI all-rounder's table behind Pollock and England's Andrew Flintoff. Harbhajan Singh, the leading wicket-taker in the ODI series, is up six places to seventh in the LG ICC Player Rankings for ODI bowlers while, further down that list, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, who took 6-55 in Indore, has moved up 32 places to joint 66 th (alongside New Zealand's James Franklin) with his best-ever haul of rating points.
For England the positives from their crushing series lose come in the shape of James Anderson and Kevin Pietersen, both of whom have made significant strides up the rankings.
Pietersen, the leading run-scorer on either side with 291 runs in five innings, is into the top 10, up eight places to seventh slot and now has his best-ever haul of rating points. And Anderson, England's most successful bowler in the series with nine wickets, is back into the top 20, up six places to 18th position.
Pietersen is England's highest-ranked batsman with Flintoff slipping five places to 19 th and Marcus Trescothick, who missed the entire Test and ODI series for personal reasons, dropping to joint 20th, alongside Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq.
Stephen Harmison is England's top-ranked ODI bowler in the LG ICC Player Rankings, although he has dropped two places after missing the entire India series through injury, while Flintoff is joint 15 th in the list with the West Indies' Ian Bradshaw.
Further down that list, left-arm slow bowler Ian Blackwell has climbed 36 places to joint 55 th, and now sits on the same number of rating points as Kenya's Thomas Odoyo.
England can at least draw a crumb of comfort from their series loss as, although they ended it in seventh place in the LG ICC ODI Championship table, they were sixth on 1 April and that means they have qualified for the second stage of the ICC Champions Trophy in India.
The top six sides in the table on that date go through to that second stage while sides 7 - 10 (Sri Lanka, the West Indies, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh) will play in a preliminary, round-robin stage with the top two sides going forward.
The itinerary for the ICC Champions Trophy will be announced in due course.
LG ICC ODI CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER THE INDIA - ENGLAND SERIES:
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Position Team Rating
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1 Australia 132
2 South Africa 119
3 India 116
4 Pakistan 114
5 New Zealand 113
6 Sri Lanka 105
7 England 103
8 West Indies 89
9 Zimbabwe 42
10 Bangladesh 24
11 Kenya 7
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