Kane Williamson surpasses Steve Smith, Virat Kohli as World No. 1 Test batsman

New Zealand captain Kane Williamson surpassed Steve Smith and Virat Kohli as the World No. 1 in the latest ICC Test rankings on Thursday.

Courtesy of his Player of the Match performance against Pakistan in the Boxing Day Test, where Williamson scored 129 and 21, Williamson jumped two places up to replace Australia's Smith as the highest-ranked Test batsman.

Kohli, who scored an aggregate of 78 runs in the first Test against Australia earlier this month, ended the year as the World No. 2 Test batsman. At the end of India's humiliating eight-wicket loss in the day-night Test in Adelaide, Kohli returned home on paternity leave. Smith lost his top position after scoring only 10 runs in his last four innings.

In 2015, Williamson held the top rank for a brief period of time, but since then, it has either Smith or Kohli had been the World No. 1 Test batsman. Even in 2020, Smith held the No. 1 spot for as long as 313 days and Kohli for 51 days before Williamson secured the position on Thursday.

The year-ending update released by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Thursday also included the performances in the first Test between South Africa and Sri Lanka in Centurion.

Williamson, who was placed third in the list, gained 13 points and went 11 points clear of Kohli and 13 ahead of former Australian skipper Smith. In the absence of Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane has been leading Team India and was awarded the Player of the Match in the Boxing Day Test against Australia for scoring a vital century. As a result, Rahane advanced five places to reach the sixth position, just one below his career-best of fifth that he had attained in October 2019.

Earlier, Smith was named the ICC Test Player of the Decade for his incredible contribution with the bat in the longest format. Smith scored over 7,000 runs in the last 10 years at an average of 65.79, including 26 centuries and 28 fifties. Reacting to the honour, Smith wrote on Twitter," Humbled to be named Test player of the decade. I would like to thank everyone who has supported me throughout my career so far. I've had a lot of fun, faced many challenges, learnt so much and now I can't wait to see what the next decade has in store for me."

Kohli, meanwhile, was declared the ICC ODI and Male Cricketer of the Decade. In the time period that was considered by the ICC for the awards, Kohli was the only player to score 10,000 or more runs in the 50-over format. While he recorded 39 ODI tons, in comparison to the next best Rohit Sharma's 27 centuries.

Even though Williamson did not win any award, he was included in ICC's Test Team of the Decade, which was captained by Kohli. The ODI Team of the Decade once again included Kohli but was led by MS Dhoni.