Sports

Suryakumar Yadav close to toppling Pakistan captain Babar Azam from No. 1

August 3, 2022
Bharat Times

Team India batter Suryakumar Yadav and his match-winning 76 has helped him rise three places on the ICC T20I ranking on Wednesday (August 3). Suryakumar is now at a career-best No. 2 position and within two points of Pakistan captain Babar Azam, who is at No. 1 currently.

Yadav has moved to within two rating points of top-ranked Babar Azam after a dazzling 44-ball knock of 76 that won him the Player of the Match award in the third T20 against West Indies and sees him lead the batting aggregate with 111 runs from three matches in the series against the West Indies which his side leads 2-1. The Mumbai Indians batter has 816 points while Babar has 818.

After Yadavhis MI teammate Ishan Kishan is the next best Indian batter at the 14th position and Indian captain Rohit Sharma is currently in 16th. Former India captain Virat Kohli downfall continued to fall in the ranking, slipping one more position to 28th.

South Africa chinaman bowler Tabraiz Shamsi, who was top-ranked for most of the period from April to October last year, has advanced one slot to take second position but remains 64 rating points adrift of top-ranked Josh Hazlewood, who is on 792 rating points. The left-arm wrist-spinner’s eight wickets, which included a match-winning five for 24 in the final match, helped win the series against England 2-1 and gain 19 rating points.

Liton Das, Heinrich Klaasen and Rishabh Pant have also moved up that list while West Indies spinner Akeal Hosein (up three places to sixth), England’s Chris Jordan (up one place to 16th), New Zealand spinners Mitchell Santner (up three places to 17th) and Ish Sodhi (up two places to 19th) are among the others to move up among T20I bowlers.

In the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s ODI Player Rankings, India opener Shikhar Dhawan has moved up one slot to 12th position after getting a half-century in the last match of their ODI series in the West Indies. India bowlers Yuzvendra Chahal (16th) and Shardul Thakur (72nd) have also gained in the latest update while West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran is up two places to 30th.