Virat Kohli leapfrogs KL Rahul, Suryakumar makes rapid progress
As per the latest ICC Men’s T20I Player Rankings, which was released on Wednesday (March 24), India captain Virat Kohli and vice-captain Rohit Sharma made progress in the charts courtesy the 3-2 home series win against England in Ahmedabad.
Kohli, who slammed an unbeaten 80 off 52 balls coming in as opener and was associated in a stand of 94 with Rohit that set the platform for the 36-run victory in the fifth T20I, has moved up one place to fourth position and is now the highest-ranked from the country ahead of KL Rahul.
Rohit’s 34-ball 64 in that match has helped him move up three places to 14th in the latest weekly rankings update which took into account the three-match Afghanistan-Zimbabwe series in Abu Dhabi apart from the last two matches of the India-England series.
In other gains for India’s batsmen, which should come as encouraging news since they host the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup later this year, Shreyas Iyer has moved up five places to a career-best 26th position while rookie Suryakumar Yadav and wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant also made rapid progress.
Suryakumar, who debuted in the second match of the series, but could not garner any points as he did not get to bat, has pushed up from the bottom to the 66th position after scores of 57 and 32 while Pant has moved up 11 places to 69th in the rankings.
Seam bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar, player of the match in the last match for his spell of two for 15, has moved up 21 places to 24th while Hardik Pandya has advanced 47 places to 78th.
For England, Dawid Malan maintains a healthy lead at the top of the rankings after his 68 in the final match while Jos Buttler has inched up one place to 18th. Leg-spinner Adil Rashid (up one place to fourth) and fast bowlers Jofra Archer (up 12 places to 22nd) and Mark Wood (up 12 places to 27th) have advanced in the bowlers’ list.
Leg-spinner Rashid Khan has lost his place at the top of the rankings despite finishing with six wickets in the series as he conceded 7.60 runs an over. South Africa spinner Tabraiz Shamsi is now number one for the first time in his career. Rashid had been pretty much at the top since February 5, 2018, only dropping to second place for two days in March 2020.
In the ICC Men’s ODI Player Rankings, Jonny Bairstow is up to four places to a career-best seventh position after his knock of 94 in the opening match of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League series against India in Pune.
India opener Shikhar Dhawan’s match-winning 98 has lifted him two places to 15th and Bhuvneshwar Kumar has gained five places to move into the top 20 in the latest ODI update, which considered performances in the opening India-England ODI and the first two matches of the New Zealand-Bangladesh series.
