Kumar, Dhawan move up in ICC rankings

Flamboyant opener Shikhar Dhawan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar on Sunday made significant strides in the ICC T20I rankings on the basis of their stellar performances in the recently concluded T20I series against South Africa.

New Delhi: Flamboyant opener Shikhar Dhawan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar on Sunday made significant strides in the ICC T20I rankings on the basis of their stellar performances in the recently concluded T20I series against South Africa.

Man of the series Bhuvneshwar Kumar who took seven wickets in the three T20 matches including a five-wicket haul in the first game at Johannesburg jumped 20 places to reach the 12th spot in the Player Rankings. While top scorer in the series Shikhar Dhawan (143 runs) improved 14 places and attained career-best 28th spot.

South Africa stand-in captain JP Duminy, who scored 122 runs in the series, also jumped four places to be at the 24th spot in the batting ranking.

As far as T20 teams are concerned, India retained third position after gaining one point from the T20 series. South Africa lost one point and retained their seventh spot. Table toppers Pakistan currently have 126 points, fractionally ahead of Australia at number two spot.

Among others, Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan moved up to take top position among bowlers with some fine performances in a 2-0 series win over Zimbabwe.

Rashid, who last week became the youngest male cricketer to be top-ranked in the ICC rankings when he rose up to joint-first in ODIs, has moved up after taking five wickets in the two-match series in Sharjah to complete the double.

The 19-year-old Rashid’s movement was not the only one at the top as New Zealand opener Colin Munro and Australia’s Glenn Maxwell became the top-ranked batsman and all-rounder, respectively.