10 batsmen who are ahead of Virat Kohli in the ICC All-Time Test rankings list

(7) Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka): 938

Kumar Sangakkara ended Ricky Ponting's reign in the ICC rankings.

Kumar Sangakkara is unarguably the greatest batsman Sri Lanka has ever produced, and he is so ahead of everyone else, it is frankly ludicrous. Sangakkara is the only Sri Lankan batsman to have breached the 900 point mark, Jayawardene is a distant second with 883 points. But, it would be foolhardy to write off Kumar as a Sri-Lankan great. Sangakkara has the highest average (57.41) amongst batsmen who have scored more than 9000 test runs. Only 3 men have scored more hundreds than Kumar, and he is second only to Bramdan when it comes to most double-hundreds with 11 of them.

Sangakkara was a keeper batsman in his early days, he did a fairly decent job at it. He scored 2966 runs at an average of 39.55. Without the gloves, Sangakkara scored 9434 runs at an average of 66. It is one of the most fascinating, yet overlooked quirk in Test history. Sangakkara was a fairly consistent cricketer from the beginning but starting from 2006, he took giant strides forward and become one of the leading batsmen in Test cricket.

Between July 2006 and December 2007, Sangakkara scored 1529 runs at an average of 152.9 in 9 tests. It included 7 hundred, 3 of them were double centuries, 6 of them were scores in excess of 150+. It saw Sangakkara leapfrog Ponting in the rankings chart, and become the No.1 batsman in the world for the first time. Sangakkara first crossed the 900 mark after the Hobart test in 2007. He scored 57 and 192 in that match. It propelled Sangakkara to 919 which was only good enough to get him the 3rd spot behind Kallis and Ponting.

The left-hander scored 92 and 152 in his next test against England which took him to 938 points, thus displacing Ricky Ponting from the numero uno spot, Kumar gained 216 points in a space of 9 tests, and his average catapulted from 46 to 57. Sangakkara failed to get going in his next few tests, and while he did hit some great peaks in his career, he was never able to replicate the same feat ever again. It brings him the 7th spot in the all-rankings list, making him the highest ranked Asian batsman of all time.