Veteran England pacer James Anderson was crowned the No 1 bowler in the latest ICC Test rankings released on Wednesday.
The 40-year-old Anderson ended Australian Pat Cummins’s four-year reign at the top.
Anderson rose to the top on the back of his seven-wicket haul for England during their emphatic 267-run victory over New Zealand in Mount Maunganui last week. England have now registered 10 wins from their last 11 Test matches and Anderson has been a mainstay in the majority of those triumphs.
With 682 Test scalps against his name, the England legend is now third on the all-time list for Test wickets behind spin duo Muttiah Muralitharan (800) and Shane Warne (708).
Since making his debut in 2003, this is the sixth time that Anderson has perched himself atop the Test rankings, with the right-armer first scaling the heights back in May 2016 when he went past teammate Stuart Broad and Ravichandran Ashwin.
More recently Anderson held on to the top ranking for five months in 2018 until he was replaced by South African Kagiso Rabada in November of that year.
His rise to the top at the spritely age of 40 years and 207 days makes him the oldest bowler to hold the top ranking since Australian great Clarrie Grimmett did so back in 1936.
Anderson's lead at the top is very slender though, with Ashwin remaining in second place on a total of 864 rating points and just two rating points behind the England pacer.
Cummins drops to third on 858 rating points.
