Batsmen Babar Azam, Rizwan retain 1st and 2nd positions in ICC T20I ranking

Dubai: Pakistani Batsmen and skipper Babar Azam and Rizwan retained first and second positions, respectively in the ICC T20I rankings.

The International Cricket Council has issued a notification in this regard.

ICC's notification stated that the latest ODI ranking has shown that Pakistan batter Babar Azam holding his place ahead of India duo Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma at the head of the batting rankings.

According to the rankings, Babar Azam is on the top with 805 points while wicketkeeper Muhammad Rizwan is on the second position with 798 points. Austalian player Aiden Markram is on the third position, while Indian Lokesh Rahul is at the fourth place.

On the other hand, New Zealand's Trent Boult remains the top ranked ODI bowler, while Bangladesh star Shakib Al Hasan is the highest rated all-rounder.

Australian quick Josh Hazlewood returned his best-ever T20I figures in the series opener against Sri Lanka, taking 4-12 in a spell, before capping another haul of 3-22 last week, with a match-sealing Super Over that went for just five runs. He is now number two among the T20I bowlers, just one point behind South Africa’s Tabraiz Shamsi in the ICC Men’s T20I Player Rankings. This week’s ratings come after the first three Australia v Sri Lanka matches and the second and third India v West Indies games.

In the series against Australia, Wanindu Hasaranga took five wickets in the first two matches, but having missed the final match, it wasn’t enough for him to continue onto the top spot, as he dropped to the third place in the T20I bowling rankings. His teammate Maheesh Theekshana was up 16 places to 29th. In the batters list, Sri Lanka’s Pathum Nissanka topped the run-scorers in the T20I series with Australia with 125 runs across the three games to move up 42 places and become joint 21st.

Dipendra Singh Airee from Nepal was the leading run scorer in the Quadrangular T20I tournament held in Oman with 142 runs which helped him up 63 places to 53rd with the bat. Chirag Suri of the UAE also moved up the table thanks to his unbeaten 84 against Nepal, which was the highest individual score in the competition. In bowlers again, Oman’s Bilal Khan proved to be very economical, conceding just 62 runs in his 12 overs, to move to his career best position of 18th in T20I in the series.

In the fifty over format, the Indian pair of Shreyas Iyer and Suryakumar Yadav have made strides up the table.  Yadav scored 64 in the second ODI against the West Indies whilst Iyer made an 80 in the third to help the home side complete a 3-0 series win. Their teammate Rishabh Pant added a half-century in the third match to move to a career best of 469 points at the 71st place. Indian pacer Prasidh Krishna was the leading wicket-taker across both sides with nine wickets at just 7.55 to gain 50 places from 94th to 44th in the ODI bowlers list, whilst Alzarri Joseph took two wickets in each of the three matches to earn himself a place in the top 20 bowler’s list.