Cricket: NZ climb to fourth on world rankings

New Zealand have cemented fourth place on the International Cricket Council's world one-day rankings after their 4-1 series win over Sri Lanka.

Having dropped as low as seventh after their 0-4 loss to South Africa in November, New Zealand are now ahead of India and England, and just four rating points behind third-placed Pakistan.

Sri Lanka's horror run of nine losses from their last 11 matches means they now face the prospect of having to play in the preliminary round of this year's ICC Champions Trophy in India.

If they are still ranked seventh on April 1 then they will have to play in the preliminary round for the right to take part in the next round of the tournament.

Sri Lanka have a chance to avoid that prospect with a good showing in the VB Series against South Africa and Australia starting later this week.

Meanwhile, New Zealand's Shane Bond has moved into the top-10 of the ICC's world player rankings after making a successful comeback from injury against Sri Lanka.

Bond, who is returning to action after a long-term back problem, missed the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy matches against Australia because of a groin strain.

His nine wickets in four matches against Marvan Atapattu's side lifted him four places to 10th in the bowling rankings.

Bond, the quickest New Zealand bowler to reach 50 one-day international wickets, and the eighth quickest of all-time, has only once had a higher tally of rating points than his current mark of 692.

That was after taking two for seven against Pakistan in Dambulla in May 2003, the match where he broke down with the back injury that took two years out of his international career. At that stage he had 711 rating points.

New Zealand have five bowlers in the top-30 places of the ICC player rankings.

Daniel Vettori is in seventh spot, Kyle Mills 15th, Jacob Oram 17th and Scott Styris 30th.

Sri Lanka's key bowlers Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas are fourth and sixth respectively, with Vaas the leading series wicket-taker with 11 scalps.

In the batting rankings, New Zealand's highest rated player is captain Stephen Fleming in 27th spot.

Australians Ricky Ponting and Glenn McGrath head the latest one-day international batting and bowling rankings.

Latest ICC world one-day rankings:


Australia 135 points (1)
South Africa 118 (2)
Pakistan 116 (3)
NEW ZEALAND 112 (4)
India 109 (5)
England 108 (6)
Sri Lanka 106 (7)
West Indies 90 (8)
Zimbabwe 44 (9)
Bangladesh 14 (10)

- NZPA