Yuvraj rises to ninth, Bhajji breaks into top-10 in ODI rankings

Dubai, July 3 (UNI) Yuvraj Singh has risen one step to ninth in the batting ladder while Harbhajan Singh has broken into the top 10 of the bowlers' list in the latest ICC ODI Rankings issued here.

Yuvraj, who was 10th in the list after the ODI series loss to West Indies, is the second Indian batsman in the table after Mahendra Singh Dhoni who remains static at the fourth spot.

In the bowlers' list, Harbhajan has risen to the ninth position after slipping to 11th following the loss in the Carribean and is joined by Irfan Pathan -- placed seventh -- in the top 10.

Meanwhile, India faces a tough challenge to its fifth position in the ODI Championship table as England's 5-0 ODI series loss to Sri Lanka has given Mahela Jaywardene's team four rating points and although it has not improved on its sixth position, it is now just two points short of India.

If it can continue its winning momentum in the upcoming home tri-series against India and second-placed South Africa then Sri Lanka has the chance to make real progress up the table as it is only five rating points behind Pakistan, in third spot.

However, the defeats have cost England six rating points and sent it sliding down to the eighth spot, one point below the West Indies, which has leapfrogged it in the list.

England has now won just five of its last 19 ODIs, with successive series losses to Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, and that has seen it shed 12 rating points since the start of December.

Sri Lanka now has three players in the top 20 of the Player Rankings for ODI batsmen with Kumar Sangakkara 10th, the rejuvenated Sanath Jayasuriya up seven places to 15th and Jayawardene rising 12 spots to 20th.

Jayasuriya, Jayawardene and Upul Tharanga each scored two hundreds in the ODI series with England and Tharanga is rewarded for his form with a rise of 38 places in the rankings to the 44th position.

England has two batsmen inside that top 20, with Kevin Pietersen, who missed the final two matches of the series through injury, in eighth and Marcus Trescothick, his side's leading run-scorer in the five matches, up three spots to 16th place.

England's acting captain Andrew Strauss dropped five places during the series and now finds himself in the 33rd spot.

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