Smith, Ashwin top ICC Test rankings for 2015

Australia chief Steven Smith and India offspinner R Ashwin have completed 2015 as the ICC's top-positioned Test batsman and bowler separately. Ashwin completed as the No. 1 positioned Test allrounder too, for the second time in three years. 

While Smith jumped Kane Williamson, Joe Root and AB de Villiers to the top, Ashwin accomplished the No. 1 rank by unseating Dale Steyn, who could just bowl 3.5 overs in the second innings of the Durban Test against England. 

Smith was positioned No. 4 toward the begin of Australia's Boxing Day Test against West Indies yet surged to the top after unbeaten scores of 134 and 70. Nobody had more Test keeps running than him this year - 1474 from 24 innings at a normal of 73.70 with six centuries and five fifties. He was additionally named the ICC's Cricketer of the Year and Test Cricketer of the Year a week ago. Smith is the third Australian batsman in the most recent decade - after Ricky Ponting (2005, 2006) and Michael Clarke (2012) - to complete as the top-positioned batsman toward the end of the year. 

Ashwin completed 2015 as top-wicket taker with 62 scalps in nine matches. He began the year positioned 15 however rich pulls on India's visit to Sri Lanka (21 wickets in three matches) and in the home arrangement against South Africa lifted him to the No. 1 spot. Of his 62 wickets, 31 came in the four-match Test arrangement against South Africa, where his execution guaranteed India cleared the arrangement 3-0. 

Ashwin, who turned into the first Indian bowler since Bishan Singh Bedi in 1973 to complete the year at the top-positioned position, additionally contributed with the bat, scoring 248 keeps running in 14 innings, with half-hundreds of years against Australia, Sri Lanka and South Africa. 

"Duplicating what Mr Bedi did is something I am extremely pleased with," Ashwin said in an ICC discharge. "The previous India commander was an expert at his art and I am exceptionally humbled to emulate his example. 

"I might want to thank my Test commander Virat Kohli, who has been a major impact, and, obviously, the group administration, my fellow team members and the BCCI for their proceeded with backing." 

Among other batsmen, Adam Voges (11), Usman Khawaja (39) and Dean Elgar (28) completed the year under the most favorable conditions rankings taking after hundreds of years in the two Boxing Day Tests in Melbourne and Durban. 

Stuart Broad finished the year as the second driving wicket-taker - 56 scalps in 14 Tests - and sits at No. 3 in the bowlers' rankings. Nathan Lyon, who won the Man-of-the-Match honor for his seven-wicket pull against West Indies in Melbourne completed under the most favorable conditions rank of 14, while Moeen Ali, Man of the Match against South Africa, completed the year positioned 23.