Sachin Tendulkar remains the highest-ranked Indian batsman at joint-13th, even as Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Sourav Ganguly and V V S Laxman slipped a rung each, in the ICC Test rankings issued on Tuesday.
Tendulkar, however, shares his place with England right-hand batsman Ian bell, who scored a career-best 199 in the drawn first Test against South Africa at Lord's.
The knock helped Bell rise nine places.
However, the other Indians in the top-20 slipped, with Dravid going down a place to 15th. Same was the case with Sehwag, Ganguly and Laxman, who dropped a spot to 18, 19 and 20 respectively.
Meanwhile, Kevin Pietersen rose three places to seven, his highest ranking this year.
The batting list is still headed by Kumar Sangakkara of Sri Lanka. He is followed by the West Indies' Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Mike Hussey of Australia and his captain Ricky Ponting, along with Mohammad Yousuf of Pakistan, the latter two sharing fourth place.
In the bowling list, Anil Kumble is the highest-placed Indian at eight followed by Zaheer Khan at joint-14th. Controversial off-spinner Harbhajan Singh is 18th.
