ICC uniquely compares the Test rankings as a part of the ‘10 Year Challenge'

Dale Steyn is the only cricketer from the best batsmen and bowlers in 2009 who is still playing international cricket.

Published - 17 Jan 2019, 18:56 IST | Updated - 17 Jan 2019, 18:56 IST

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The ’10 Year Challenge’ has taken the entire social media world by storm. It has been trending over the last few days with various people sharing their pictures to highlight how things changed in the last 10 years. Also, there has been a creative element added to this challenge to make things amusing and to raise awareness at times. The International Cricket Council (ICC) is also on board and has been sharing pictures of players in the last few days.

Now, the social media handle of the apex governing body got slightly more creative. The ICC, in a very unique attempt, decided to compare the current Test rankings with the ones ten years ago. Both the top batsmen as well as the bowlers were compared in the year 2009 and 2019.

Virat Kohli, Kagiso Rabada now. Who then?

Then ’10 Year Challenge’ also known as the ‘ThenvsNow’ challenge and the ‘2009vs2019’ challenge has taken the fans down the memory lane. While Virat Kohli leads the batting charts at the moment, it the Windies legend Shivnarine Chanderpaul back in 2009. Virat is followed by Kane Williamson, Cheteshwar Pujara, Steve Smith and Joe Root in the current rankings.

But, in 2009, Shivnarine Chanderpaul had Mohammad Yousuf, Kumar Sangakkara, Kevin Pietersen and Michael Clarke for company in the top-five. Mahela Jayawardene, Ricky Ponting, Younus Khan, Graeme Smith and Gautam Gambhir occupied the remaining five positions then. We have David Warner, Henry Nicholls, Aiden Markram, Dimuth Karunaratne and Hashim Amla standing in the corresponding positions now.

The @MRFWorldwide ICC Test Batting Rankings, then and now!#2009vs2019 #10YearChallenge pic.twitter.com/7OcV2zEteV
— ICC (@ICC) January 16, 2019

As far as the bowlers go, Muttiah Muralidharan was the most dominative force in 2009 while it is Kagiso Rabada in 2019. Dale Steyn, who was at number two, is the only cricketer who is still playing international cricket from this list. Some of the other significant bowlers leading the charts in 2009 were Mitchell Johnson, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Daniel Vettori and Makhaya Ntini.