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Dubai - India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is all set to lose his number-one spot in the ICC Player Rankings for ODI batsmen after deciding to skip the triangular series in Zimbabwe which starts in Bulawayo on Friday.
A player loses half a per cent of his ratings points for every ODI missed. As such, Dhoni, who currently leads Michael Hussey by just eight ratings points, will slip behind the Australian when the player rankings are released at the end of the series in Zimbabwe.
Dhoni will not be the only batsman to drop in the rankings. Sachin Tendulkar (fourth), Kumar Sangakkara (10th), Virender Sehwag (11th), Yuvraj Singh (14th), Gautam Gambhir (23rd) and Mahela Jayawardena (29th) are all likely to slip in the rankings after opting out of the series to be played between May 28 and June.
However, the absence of these proven performers has given stand-in captains Tillekeratne Dilshan (13th) of Sri Lanka and India's Suresh Raina (16th) along with Virat Kohli (21st) outstanding opportunities to move up the table.
It's the same scenario in the ICC Player Rankings for ODI bowlers with Sri Lanka's iconic spinner Muttiah Muralidaran certain to drop out of the top 20 for the first time since March 1996.
Muralidaran, who will also miss the series in Zimbabwe, currently sits in 16th position and leads the pair of Saeed Ajmal of Pakistan and Dwayne Bravo of the West Indies by only six ratings points.
In the ICC ODI Championship table, India sits in second position on 122 ratings points while Sri Lanka is in sixth position, 14 points behind. Zimbabwe occupies 10th position, just two ahead of Ireland.
Meanwhile, South Africa batsman Hashim Amla has rocketed up the ladder after producing player-of-the-match performances in the first two ODIs against the West Indies in Antigua.
Amla scored 102 - his second ODI century - in the South Africa's 66-run victory and then followed up with 92 in his side's 17-run victory in the second game. As such, he was rewarded with a jump of 13 places to make him the fourth highest-ranked South Africa batsman after AB de Villiers (third), Jacques Kallis (seventh) and Graeme Smith (eighth) in 12th position.
Amla is now within 10 points of a place in the top 10, and a couple more solid performances in the remaining three ODIs could take him there.
De Villiers, who scored 102 and 41 in the two ODIs, has consolidated his third position and now sits on 800 ratings points - 19 behind Dhoni -while Kallis, who scored 85 in the second ODI, has swapped places with Smith.
In the bowlers' rankings, Dale Steyn has slipped two places to ninth but Dwayne Bravo and Morne Morkel are on a charge. Bravo has climbed three places to share 20th spot with Pakistan's Saeed Ajmal while Morkel has moved up 12 places to 39th position.
