Sports
No marked gains for Indians; Shaheen Afridi climbs to No. 10 in T20I rankings for bowlers
Dubai, April 13 (IANS): Only one Indian, KL Rahul, figures in the top-10 of the ICC T20 Men’s Player Rankings, the latest edition of which was released on Wednesday. Rahul is 10th on the list of T20I Rankings for batters, which is led by Pakistan skipper Babar Azam and has team-mate Mohammad Rizwan at No.3.
India’s all-format skipper Rohit Sharma is further down at 14th, while former skipper Virat Kohli is 16th.
In the T20I Rankings for bowlers, Pakistan’s Shaheen Afridi‘s 2/21 in the one-off T20I against Australia sees him climb four spots to No.10. Despite the best efforts of the ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year 2021 in the penultimate over, Australia got over the line with five balls to spare.
Australian pace bowler Josh Hazlewood, who did not feature in the one-off T20I game, has dropped a spot to No.3 while England’s Adil Rashid has moved to No.2.
In the Test Rankings for all-rounders, India’s Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin continue to hold the top two spots, while in the Test Rankings for bowlers, Ashwin and pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah are second and third, respectively behind Australian skipper Pat Cummins.
Among batters in the Test Rankings, Rohit Sharma (8th) and Kolhi (10th) figures in the Top-10. The list is led by Australia’s Marnus Labuschagne.
There is some movement in the Test player rankings following the conclusion of the series between South Africa and Bangladesh. Spinner Keshav Maharaj, who starred both with the bat and the ball in the final game and took home the Player of the Match and Player of the Series, rose to 21st in bowlers’ rankings and 13th in all-rounders.
Fellow spinner Simon Harmer too climbed 26 spots to No.54 in bowlers’ rankings. The off-spinner finished as the second-highest wicket-taker in the series with 13 wickets, only second to Maharaj (16). The two spinners combined to pick up all the wickets in the second innings, bundling Bangladesh out for 80 as they swept the visitors 2-0.