Mitchell Starc Regains No. 1 Test Bowling Ranking as Simon Harmer Climbs to Seventh
Starc's nine wickets in Cape Town put him back on top of the ICC Test bowling list on 4 November, while Harmer rose nine places and Shreyas Iyer moved to seventh in T20I batting.
By John · 7 Nov 2026 · 2 min read
Mitchell Starc is once again the top-ranked Test bowler in men's cricket. The ICC rankings update released on Wednesday, 4 November, put the Australia left-armer back at No. 1 after he took nine wickets in the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town, a match Australia lost by 176 runs to go down 2-1 in the series.
Starc took 6 for 72 and 3 for 65. That was enough to move him past Marco Jansen, who had gone to the top for the first time a week earlier but managed only three wickets at Newlands.
Harmer’s best haul brings a big rise
Simon Harmer, Player of the Match in Cape Town, climbed nine places to seventh among Test bowlers. The off-spinner took the first 10-wicket match haul of his Test career, including six in the second innings, and now has 817 rating points. The ICC said only one South Africa spinner has ever been rated higher: Hugh Tayfield, with 895 in February 1957. Harmer also moved up three places to fifth in the all-rounders’ list, where Jansen remains on top.
Other South Africans gained in the batting list. Wiaan Mulder, who made 115 in the second innings, rose seven places to a career-best 17th, and Ryan Rickelton jumped 25 places to 23rd. Elsewhere, West Indies spinner Jomel Warrican moved up six places to 30th after the eight-wicket win over Bangladesh in Dhaka.
White-ball movers
In the ODI batting rankings, Ben Duckett rose one place to a career-best sixth after his 167 against Sri Lanka. Fakhar Zaman went up nine places to 37th after his 127 in the tri-series final, and Sri Lanka's Pavan Rathnayake climbed 20 places to 16th.
In T20Is, India captain Shreyas Iyer moved up two places to seventh among batters after his 50 against New Zealand in Hamilton. Glenn Phillips, Player of the Series with 341 runs in the five matches, rose 13 places to 24th, and Jacob Duffy climbed 23 places to 23rd in the bowling list.