Haris Rauf has catapulted teammate leg-spinner Shadab Khan to become the top-ranked Pakistan bowler in the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s T20I Bowler Rankings, released on Wednesday.
The Pakistan quick was just ahead of Shaheen Afridi last week and behind Shadab Khan, who was 12th in the T20I bowling rankings. Ten wickets spread across the first three T20Is has seen Rauf move up five places in the rankings to occupy the 11th spot. He also achieved career-high ratings of 657 points in the process and could potentially enter the top 10 by the end of the five-match series.
Meanwhile, Ish Sodhi (620) and Shaheen (624) have also moved up by four places and two places respectively with the others around them dropping points.
In other ranking news, Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan remains at the helm of the bowling list. In batting, the top three positions did not move in spite of the first three matches of the ongoing T20I series between Pakistan and New Zealand in Lahore. Number three, captain Babar Azam continues to move closer to second spot, currently held in the safe hands of his teammate Mohammed Rizwan.
Babar smashed a spectacular and unbeaten 101 from just 58 deliveries in the second match to notch up his batting rating points to 769, sliding him nearer to Rizwan, who sits on 798 points.
The pair trail India batting star, Suryakumar Yadav, who leads comfortably with 906 ratings points.
Other gains have been made by Pakistan all-rounder Iftikhar Ahmed, who has risen 11 spaces to number 44 on the batting list and five slots to 25th in the all-rounders list.
New Zealand skipper Tom Latham soared 87 spots to 66th in the batting rankings, while his teammate Mark Chapman also rose significantly from 119th to 83rd.
The other big movement in the rankings came from Sri Lanka with Prabath Jayasuriya continuing his magical start to red-ball cricket. The left-arm spinner picked up a ten-wicket match haul against Ireland in the first Test, his second such figures in a very short six-match Test career.
Jayasuriya has 43 wickets in six Tests already with five five-wicket hauls. A career-best seven-wicket haul in the Galle Test against Ireland ensured he moved up by 13 places in the ICC Test bowling rankings to enter the top 20.
While achieving career-best ratings of 669, Jayasuriya also became the top-ranked Sri Lankan bowler in Test cricket. Ramesh Mendis (576), who moved up by three places after a four-wicket haul in the second innings of the Test against Ireland, is placed next at No.32.
Prabath Jayasuriya leaped 13 slots to a career-best 19th in the bowling list of the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s Test Player Rankings following his 10-wicket haul against Ireland this past week. His performance, alongside centuries from teammates captain Dimuth Karunaratne, Kusal Mendis, Dinesh Chandimal and Sadeera Samarawickrama, helped Sri Lanka to a whopping innings and 280-run victory in the first of the two-match series in Galle. Jayasuriya spun his way from 32nd place in the rankings to his personal best and rating points of 869.
In the batting list, Sri Lanka captain Karunaratne’s 179 runs from 235 balls advanced him one spot to ninth with 783 points, while Chandimal and Mendis rose to 14th and 42nd respectively.
Ireland’s Harry Tector shot up 21 slots to his own career-best 69th in the batting list with 444 rating points.
In the Ravichandran Ashwin-led bowling list, Mendis rose three spaces to 32nd, while Vishwa Fernando gained four places to 59th.—APP
