Pakistan captain Babar Azam and Australian batter Travis Head are closing in on the top spots in the ICC rankings of Test batters as they make rapid improvements in separate red ball series.
Head is now second with 874 points after jumping two spots. He is short of only nine points as compared to New Zealand’s Kane Williamson, who ranks first with 883 in the Test batter rankings, the latest update issued by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Wednesday said.
Meanwhile, Babar is also not far behind, as he jumped three spots to the third position in the list, with 862 points.
“Australia star Travis Head is the newest chal-lenger to the No.1 Test batter ranking after the in-form left-hander rose to a career-high second place on the latest ICC Men’s Test Batting Rankings,” the ICC said in a press release.
“Head jumps two places and up to second be-hind New Zealand veteran Kane Williamson on the back of his tremendous Ashes series against England that has already netted the 29-year-old a total of 266 runs at an average of 44.33.
“In the most recent Test of that series in Head-ingley, Head contributed scores of 39 and 77 and was a major reason why the visitors went close to recording a third consecutive Ashes victory.
“Head’s rise up the batter charts has seen yet another re-shuffle at the top of the batting rankings, with Pakistan captain Babar Azam jumping three places to third and fellow Australians Steve Smith (fourth) and Marnus Labuschagne (fifth) and England’s Joe Root (sixth) all dropping one spot in what is an enthralling race for top billing.”
Head will look to clinch the top spot during the remaining two matches of the ongoing Ashes cricket series.
Meanwhile, Azam will look to do the same during the two-match Test series against Sri Lanka this month.
“Pakistan captain Babar Azam jumping three places to third and fellow Australians Steve Smith (fourth) and Marnus Labuschagne (fifth) and Eng-land’s Joe Root (sixth) all dropping one spot in what is an enthralling race for top billing,” the ICC stated.
In the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s ODI Player Rankings, Afghanistan batter Ibrahim Zadran gained 11 slots to reach 16th position after contributing 142 runs during a 2-1 series win over Bangladesh while Rahmanullah Gurbaz galloped 37 places to 45th after topping the series aggregate with 173 runs.
Player of the Series Fazalhaq Faroozi pro-gressed 58 places to 33rd position after grabbing eight wickets in the series while Rashid Khan was up three places to fourth.
For Bangladesh, Liton Das moved up three places to 38th after aggregating 92 runs in the series while Shakib Al Hasan was back in the top 10 for bowlers.
In the latest weekly update, that also took into consideration performances in matches of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2023 played over the past week, Netherlands’ Max D’Owd (up five places to 56th) and USA’s Gajanand Singh (up five places to 59th) were others to move up the batting rankings.
In the bowling rankings, Saurabh Netravalkar of the USA (up 13 places to 18th), Maheesh Theekshana of Sri Lanka (up 13 places to 19th) and the United Arab Emirates’ Aayan Afzal Khan (up three places to 46th) made notable progress.—APP
