Babar Azam moves to No. 2 in Test batting rankings, Travis Head breaches top five for the first time

Babar Azam has moved past Steven Smith and only behind Marnus Labuschagne in the rankings for Test batters following scores of 78 and 54 in the third and final Test against England, which Pakistan lost to concede the series 3-0 at home.

Far away from Karachi, in Brisbane, Travis Head scored 92 in 96 balls in the first Australia innings in a Test where 34 wickets fell well within two days, and that got him into the top five for the first time in his career. He is currently joint-fourth with Joe Root, who scored a duck in his only innings in the Test in Karachi. In the Brisbane Test, Smith hit 36 and 6, and Labuschagne 11 and 5 not out; so far ahead of the pack was Labuschagne that Babar, despite his rise, is still 61 rating points behind Labuschagne.

At the end of England's phenomenal performance in Pakistan, many of their other batters made big gains: Ben Stokes was up two spots to No. 23, Ollie Pope one spot to No. 28, and Harry Brook, named the Player of the Series, went up 11 positions to enter the top 50 for the first time at joint-44th place.

The third Test series in progress over the last week was between Bangladesh and India, where India won the first Test in Chattogram by 188 runs.

Cheteshwar Pujara scored 90 and 102 not out there, and Shubman Gill scored 20 and 110. As a result, Pujara went up 19 places to No. 19, and Gill ten places to joint-54th. Shreyas Iyer's 86 in his only innings helped him move up 11 places to No. 26.

Kagiso Rabada was the only bowler to gain significantly in the top ten for bowlers, his eight wickets - twin four-fors - in the Brisbane Test lifting him four spots to No. 3. Outside the top ten, Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav moved up ten places to No. 18 and 19 places to No. 49 respectively after leading India's bowling charge in Chattogram.

Also in Chattogram, Shakib Al Hasan played an aggressive innings of 84 in Bangladesh's second innings, and that helped him move past Stokes to No. 3 on the table for Test allrounders.