Kuldeep Yadav enters top five in T20I rankings

Kuldeep Yadav

India's left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav made the most significant gains and entered the top five for the first time in the latest ICC men's T20 International player rankings. Yadav, who took four wickets across the three Twenty20 Internationals against Australia, moved up a whopping 20 places to No.3. Adam Zampa, the Australia leg-spinner, made a 17-spot leap to No.5 after picking three wickets against India across two innings, including a match-winning spell of 2/22 in the first match.

And with Australia quicks Billy Stanlake and Andrew Tye slipping five places to No.14 and eight places to No.18 respectively, the top 10 bowlers' list now features nine spinners ¿ Pakistan's Faheem Ashraf the lone quick among the top names. Krunal Pandya, who claimed a stunning 4/36 in India's series levelling-win in the third game, rose 66 places to No.98, while Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah held their places at No.19 and No.21 respectively. In the batting department, the results were mixed.

India opener Shikhar Dhawan moved up five places to No.11 after his knocks of 76 and 41, but Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul slipped two spots to No.6 and No.9 respectively, while Virat Kohli kept his spot at No.14 after scores of 4 and 61' ¿ the latter a match-winning effort. For Australia, skipper Aaron Finch, who failed to be his destructive self in all four games including the one-off T20I against South Africa, slipped one spot to the third rank, but Glenn Maxwell rose to the fifth place from No.6 after scores of 38, 46, 19 and 13. In the Test team rankings, India held on to the top spot with 116 points. England have claimed second position on the team rankings after completing a 3-0 sweep over Sri Lanka in Colombo on Monday.

England had started the series ranked third on 106 points, one point behind South Africa. As the Test team rankings, unlike the ODI and T20I team rankings, are updated at the end of a series, England have finished in second place on 108 points. In contrast, Sri Lanka, who had entered the series in sixth place on 97 points (two points ahead of seventh-ranked Pakistan), have finished two points behind Pakistan on 93 points after conceding four points. In the latest table, India (116 points) lead the field. They are followed by England (108), South Africa (106), Australia (102) and New Zealand (101). If Australia win all four Tests against India, and South Africa beat Pakistan 3-0, then South Africa will be the new No.1-ranked side, ahead of Australia by a fraction of a point. In this scenario, England and India will be equal on 108 points with England ranked above India when the points are calculated beyond the decimal point.

Australia can also top the team rankings, but to make this happen, Tim Paine's side will have to win all four Tests against India and then hope Pakistan either draw or win a Test against South Africa. If Australia and South Africa win 4-0 and 2-1 respectively, then Australia will be first on 110 points and South Africa will be fourth on 108 points. However, if India and Pakistan beat Australia and South Africa 4-0 and 3-0 respectively, then India will move to 120 points while retaining the No.1 position, followed by England (108), New Zealand (105, if they draw Pakistan 1-1 and beat Sri Lanka 2-0), Pakistan (103), South Africa (100) and Australia (97).

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