Aditya Sahay

Joe Root England's former captain Joe Root tops the chart. The Englishman has 895 rating points and is firmly on the top following a sensational 2024. He ended the last calendar year with 1,556 runs with six hundreds and five fifties. Harry Brook Harry Brook comes at the second spot. Brook made 1,100 runs in the previous calendar year with a best of 317 versus Pakistan in Pakistan. The right-hander is expected to have another great year given his dream start in red-ball format.

Former Indian opener Aakash Chopra claimed that Rohit Sharma's Test career isn't as glorious as Virat Kohli's. Recently, Hitman has been under the radar since his poor returns in the just-concluded 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) between India and Australia, where India lost 3-1 to the hosts. He ended with scores of 3, 6, 10, 3 and 9 whereas his average was a woeful 24.76 in whites in 2024.

New Zealand thrashed Sri Lanka by 113 runs (DLS method) to win the second and penultimate rain-marred ODI at the Seddon Park, Hamilton on Wednesday (Jan 8). Riding on Rachin Ravindra's 79 and Mark Chapman's 62, the Kiwis posted 255-9 in a 37-overs aside contest before their seamers rose to the occasion to dismiss the Lankans for a paltry 142 in 30.2 overs. While Maheesh Theekshana's hat-trick restricted the Kiwis to a moderate total, the visitors' batting line-up fell flat.