Suryakumar Yadav is within sniffing distance of dethroning Pakistan’s charismatic cricketer Babar Azam from the No. 1 spot in the ICC T20I rankings for batters after the 31-year-old Indian has given some fine performances in the ongoing five-match series against the West Indies.
The ICC released its weekly update of the rankings on Wednesday and Yadav surged three spots to second overall on the T20I list for batters, with Babar now just two rating points ahead of the in-form right-hander.
While Babar Azam has 818 rating points, Yadav is placed second on the list with 816 points, way ahead of another Pakistan batter Mohammad Rizwan, who is on 794.
He has had a dream start to his T20I career. In only 22 matches, he has turned himself into an indispensable part of the Indian batting unit in the shortest format of the game. Suryakumar has scored 648 runs in 22 T20Is which is the second-most by an Indian after playing the same number of matches. He is only behind KL Rahul, who had scored 755. But Suryakumar’s strike rate of 175.6 is the best among all Indians after first 20 innings. Rahul’s was 152.5
In the ODI rankings, India opener Shikhar Dhawan has moved up one slot to 12th position after getting a half-century in the last match of their ODI series in the West Indies. India bowlers Yuzvendra Chahal (16th) and Shardul Thakur (72nd) have also gained in the latest update while West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran is up two places to 30th.
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