ICC T20 Rankings: Axar Patel, Yashasvi Jaiswal break into top-10

Axar Patel and Yashasvi Jaiswal hauled themselves into the top-10 of the ICC T20 rankings after excellent outings against Afghanistan in the two T20I matches. Left-arm spinner Axar jumped to fifth place while opening batter Jaiswal climbed to sixth spot. Patel posted bowling figures of 2/23 and 2/16 as India beat Afghanistan by six-wickets in Mohali and Indore respectively to take an unbeatable lead in the three-match series. Axar has advanced 12 places to a career-best fifth position among bowlers as India players made gains in the ICC Men’s T20I Player Rankings. He also climbed to 16th among all-rounders after the latest weekly rankings update. Opener Jaiswal’s 34-ball 68 runs in the first T20I lifted him seven places to a career-best sixth position while Shivam Dube’s successive unbeaten knocks of 60 and 63 runs have helped him shoot up from 265th to 58th. He has thus surpassed Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill in the batting rankings. Suryakumar Yadav, on the sidelines with an injury, remains the World No 1 T20I batter. Shubman Gill (up seven places to 60th among batters), Tilak Verma (up three places to joint-61st among batters) and Arshdeep Singh (up four places to 21st among bowlers) are the other India players to move up while Najibullah Zadran (up one place to 46th) and Mohammad Nabi (up two places to 54th) are the Afghanistan players to move up in the batting rankings. A player who has also made serious gains is New Zealand’s Finn Allen, whose two innings of 34 off 15 and 74 off 41 helped his team win the first two matches against Pakistan and lifted him 11 places to 16th among batters. His teammate Tim Southee, who took six wickets in the first two matches, is up eight places to 18th in the bowlers’ list. Pakistan’s star batter Babar Azam is up one place to fourth after notching consecutive half-centuries in the first two matches against New Zealand while Fakhar Zaman is up 14 places to 81st. Daryll Mitchell (up nine places to 37th) and Kane Williamson (up 13 places to 59th) are the Kiwi batters to move up. The bowling rankings see Sri Lanka spinners Wanindu Hasaranga and Maheesh Theekshana take joint-third position after moving up one and two places, respectively. Pakistan fast bowler Haris Rauf’s haul of five wickets in two matches have lifted him two places to joint-14th while New Zealand player Adam Milne’s six wickets in two matches see him advance from 66th to joint-47th position.