The historic triumph against world champions Australia in Perth has assured India a rise to the second place in the ICC Test rankings regardless of how the fourth and final Test in Adelaide pans out for the resurgent visitors.
Apart from this, Anil Kumble's men have another reason to smile as all their top performers in the match have moved up in the individual rankings.
After shinning with both bat and ball, Irfan Pathan has broken into the top 20 of Test bowlers chart released on Sunday.
The Baroda pacer, who scored 28 and 46 with the bat besides claiming 5 wickets for 117 runs in Perth, climbed six places to 19th to join Kumble, who is unchanged at sixth, and an injured Zaheer Khan (13th) in the top 20.
If the final Test in Adelaide starting January 24 ends in a draw, India will move two rating points ahead of third-placed Sri Lanka.
And if Kumble's side manages to square the series, it will finish on 113 ratings points, four ahead of Mahela Jayawardene's team.
Even if Australia wins the match in Adelaide, India will sit above Sri Lanka when ratings points are calculated beyond the decimal point.
Pathan will be hoping for another good show at Adelaide that will help him to overtake Pakistan pair of Mohammad Asif and Danish Kaneria as well as New Zealand's James Franklin in the bowling rankings.
Only 24 ratings points separate 16th-placed Asif from Pathan who is now just three short of 100 Test wickets. He also re-established himself as one of the most promising all-rounders in the game by leapfrogging Australia's Brett Lee and West Indian duo of Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo to sixth spot in the Test all-rounders' list.
Among other Indians, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sehwag and Mahendra Singh Dhoni have all made improvements in the batting charts.
Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman rose one position each to 13th, 15th and 17th respectively.
Virender Sehwag, meanwhile, jumped three places to share the 32nd place with Pakistan's Kamran Akmal and England's Marcus Trescothick while Dhoni lifted one place to share 41st spot.
However, Wasim Jaffer is one of the two Indian batsmen to lose ground with the other being former captain Sourav Ganguly who dropped five places to fall out of the top-20 list and is now ranked 22nd, while Jaffer slid one place to 42nd spot in the batting chart which is still headed by Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara.
Among bowlers, Pathan's new-ball partner RP Singh climbed three places to 29th position while Ishant Sharma jumped 18 places to 69th place.
Despite its first defeat in 17 Tests, there was some good news for Australia as well.
Fast bowler Stuart Clark, who took 6-106 in Perth, was back in second place by swapping places with South Africa's Dale Steyn.
Brett Lee cemented his fourth position by achieving a career-best rating along with Clark while Mitchell Johnson improved his ranking by three places to 51st position, one ahead of Symonds who climbed four places and now sits on a career-high 52nd spot in the list still headed by Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan.
Australian captain Ricky Ponting, however, continues his slide and he has now dropped to fourth position after entering the series against India as the leading batsman.
Ponting's failure to score heavily in this series has allowed Michael Hussey to rise to third for the first time in his career.
Symonds is the other Australia batsman to make the upward movement when he broke into the top 20 for the first time in his career. He climbed three places to 18th.
Besides that trio, Matthew Hayden is in sixth position, Michael Clarke stays in 12th spot and just 10 points adrift of South Africa's Ashwell Prince in 11th place and Adam Gilchrist is on 23rd position.
