LAHORE: Pakistani pacer Shaheen Afridi has reached the top 10 in the ICC T20I Player Rankings.
Afridi’s spell of 2/21 in the one-off T20I against Australia sees him climb fours spots to No.10 in the latest ICC T20I Player Rankings. Despite his best efforts in the penultimate over, Australia got over the line with five balls to spare.
Pakistani captain Babar Azam, who was ICC Men’s Player of the Month for March continued his stay at the top of the batters’ rankings. However, Mohammad Rizwan dropped a spot to No.3.
Nepal’s Dipendra Singh Airee made gains across after the conclusion of the tri-series involving PNG and Malaysia. He rose 13 spots to No.38 for batters, 47 spots to No.135 for bowlers and 10 spots to No.10 for all-rounders.
JJ Smit of Namibia broke into the top 5 for T20I all-rounders with a stunning all-round showing against Uganda. Batting first, he scored 71 off just 35 balls and then finished with figures of 6/10, which included a hat-trick.
There was some movement in the Test player Rankings as well after the conclusion of the series between South Africa and Bangladesh. Keshav Maharaj, who starred both with the bat and the ball in the final game and took home the Player of the Match and Player of the Series, rose to 21st in bowlers’ rankings and 13th in all-rounders.
Spinner Simon Harmer too climbed 26 spots to No.54 in bowlers rankings. He finished as the second-highest wicket-taker in the series with 13 wickets, only second to Maharaj (16). The two spinners combined to pick up all the wickets in the second innings, bundling Bangladesh out for 80 as they swept the visitors 2-0.
