Mitchell Starc becomes No. 1 in ICC Test bowling rankings

On August 26, 2026, Australia fast bowler Mitchell Starc reached the top of the ICC Test bowling rankings after his 10-wicket match in MacKay in the second Test of Australia’s ICC World Test Championship series against Bangladesh. The 36-year-old left-armer’s six for 12 and four for 39 helped Australia to an innings and 51 runs victory and secured him the No.1 slot for the first time in his career.

Starc overtook Matt Henry and Jasprit Bumrah to move clear at the summit, leading Bumrah by 10 rating points, with his previous best ranking having been second — a position first achieved after last year’s Boxing Day Test. He was awarded both Player of the Match and Player of the Series for his performances in the two-Test set. Bumrah’s most recent spell at No.1 lasted two months, and he has a combined 697 days as the top-ranked bowler, the most by an India bowler and the 14th-most overall; he has been ruled out of the ongoing series against Sri Lanka due to an injury.

England’s Ollie Robinson advanced significantly after his five for 51 and three for 39 in Leeds, which helped England to an innings and 103 runs win over Pakistan and earned him the Player of the Match award; Robinson moved up 15 places to 11th among bowlers. Team-mate Josh Tongue’s eight wickets at Headingley lifted him 16 places to 17th in the bowling list.

India’s left-arm spinner Manav Suthar rose 28 places to a career-best 48th following his 10 wickets in India’s 165-run victory over Sri Lanka in the first Test in Galle. Sri Lanka’s Asitha Fernando and Prabath Jayasuriya each climbed five places to 15th and 16th, respectively.

Several other bowlers registered notable jumps: Australia’s Nathan Lyon moved up two places to 10th, Pakistan’s Ali Usman gained 30 places to 67th, England’s Jofra Archer rose six places to joint-38th, India’s M. Prasidh Krishna improved two places to 53rd, and Bangladesh’s Shoriful Islam advanced 17 places to 57th.

The batting rankings also shifted, with Harry Brook extending his lead at the top to 24 rating points over team-mate Joe Root after Brook’s top score of 90 and Root’s 66. India wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant returned to the top 10 for the first time in a year following scores of 39 and 66, moving up six places to seventh. Other upward movements included Australia’s Cameron Green (up nine to 21st), Sri Lanka’s Dhananjaya de Silva (up two to 22nd) and Sonal Dinusha (up 49 to 54th), Pakistan’s Abdullah Shafique (up seven to joint-27th), India’s K.L. Rahul (up five to 30th) and Devdutt Padikkal (re-entered at 59th).

Those shifts in individual positions were reflected in the ICC Test rankings update published with the match results on August 26, 2026, leaving Mitchell Starc as the leading Test bowler and producing multiple movement across both bowling and batting lists.