KEY POINTS:
Jacob Oram, Ross Taylor and Brendon McCullum were the biggest New Zealand movers up the international test cricket rankings issued yesterday after the second test against England.
However there was some slippage involving teammates Mathew Sinclair, Jamie How, Chris Martin and skipper Daniel Vettori.
Oram was the only New Zealand bowler making an advance with his 6-90 in the Wellington test lifting him seven places to a career-best 31st position.
His bowling performance had a major impact on his allrounder's ranking moving him up five places to a career-best fifth.
Taylor climbed 16 places to 58th spot in the rankings of batsmen after his knocks of 53 and 55 while wicketkeeper McCullum climbed five places to 42nd spot.
Former skipper Stephen Fleming was unchanged at 13th in the batsmen rankings to be the only New Zealander in the top 20.
Sinclair dropped two places to 60th and opener Jamie How slipped seven to 79th.
Martin fell three places to 14th spot while Vettori dropped two slots to 21st in the bowling rankings.
Vettori remains second in the all rounders' rankings on 347 points behind leader Jacques Kallis of South Africa who has 527 points.
Although no longer eligible to play for New Zealand Shane Bond is still ranked seventh best bowler while James Franklin, at 17th is the third Kiwi in the bowlers' top 20.
Leading ICC test rankings (as of March 17):
Batsmen
Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka) 933 points 56.37 average 1, Mike Hussey (Australia) 912 78.14 2, Ricky Ponting (Australia) 899 58.53 3, Jacques Kallis (South Africa) 899 57.78 4, Mohammad Yousuf 880 55.49 5.
Also: Stephen Fleming 710 39.81 13.
Bowlers
Mutthiah Muralidaran (Sri Lanka) 907 21.77 1, Dale Steyn (South Africa) 893 21.80 2, Stuart Clark (Australia) 829 21.88 3, Brett Lee (Australia) 795 29.97 4, Makhaya Ntini (South Africa) 754 27.96 5.
Also: Shane Bond (New Zealand) 709 22.39 7, Chris Martin (New Zealand) 626 32.47 14, James Franklin (New Zealand) 612 28.19 17.
Allrounders
JacquesKallis (South Africa) 527 1, Daniel Vettori (New Zealand) 347 2, Andrew Flintoff (England) 327 3, Chaminda Vaas (Sri Lanka) 276 4, Jacob Oram (New Zealand) 263 5.
- NZPA
