West Indies batsman Marlon Samuels rose 20 places to a career-best 35th in the latest ICC Test Batting Rankings after posting scores of 117 and 76 not out against England at Trent Bridge. Samuels, who entered the series in 63rd, earned 109 points for his performance in the second Test to move to 552 overall. His previous best ranking had been 45th in 2008. Captain Darren Sammy (106 & 25) also achieved his highest ever position, jumping from 68th to 55th on the strength of his maiden Test century, while Shivnarine Chanderpaul (46 & 11) held on to the number one spot despite falling from 878 to 865 on the points scale. He still leads South Africans AB de Villiers (821) and Jacques Kallis (819) by a decent margin.
Among the other specialist batsmen, Kieran Powell (33 & 1) skipped two spots to move to 99th, Darren Bravo (3 & 22) fell one place to 22nd, Adrian Barath (0 & 7) dropped from 67th to 74th and Kirk Edwards (7 & 0) went down three spots to 56th.
England currently boast six batsmen in the top 30, including Alistair Cook (6th), Jonathan Trott (16th), Kevin Pietersen (17th), Ian Bell (18th), Andrew Strauss (23rd) and Matt Prior (26th). In the Bowling Rankings, Ravi Rampaul (3-75 & 0-12) moved from 44th to 40th, Kemar Roach (2-90 & 0-16) dropped two spots to 17th, Sammy (2-120 & 0-32) lost two places to go to 25th and Shane Shillingford (1-110 & 0-28) fell from 47th to 52nd. Samuels (2-14 & 1-18) also got to another career-high, moving five places to 81st.
Man-of-the-Match Tim Bresnan (4-104 & 4-37) was the biggest mover among the English bowlers, gaining 10 places to a best of 15th, while James Anderson (2-73 & 4-43) stayed in third, Graeme Swann (2-62 & 1-24) hopped one place to fourth and Stuart Broad (2-81 & 1-58) fell three places to sixth. Sammy moved one place to seventh in the Allrounder Rankings, laying between Swann (6th) and Bresnan (8th) while Broad is third. Bangladesh's Shakib Al Hasan and South African Jacques Kallis occupy the top two spots.
