ICC Cricket Rankings: Joe Root Extends Lead While Abhishek Sharma Claims T20I Top Spot

The new ICC cricket rankings have boasted of a lot of excitement after exciting matches between England and India. The positions of some players have improved tremendously, and new leaders have emerged in various formats. The Test skipper of England, Joe Root, has also cemented his number one spot on the list of world cricket rankings of batters according to the ICC. 

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He won a substantial lead due to his magnificent innings of 150 runs at Old Trafford. It was also during this excellent play that Root was able to set a new record at historic levels – beating the Australian great Ricky Ponting to second place on the all-time list of run-scorers in Test cricket.

The Manchester Test has even favoured another member of the Root team, Ben Duckett, who has moved up five places to attain the 10th position in the cricket rankings. This was achieved with an impressive knock of 94 runs played by him.

On the Indian team front, wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant was ranked seventh against his previous rank of eighth, despite him playing with an injury. His 50-year-long career with Manchester gave him some good cricket points. But, young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal lost three spots to eighth position.

Veteran all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja had a career-best rating in the batting charts as he rose five places to reach 29th place following his unbeaten hundred in the second innings. England skipper Ben Stokes also had remarkable tributes as he jumped eight ranks to be joint 34th.

Abhishek Sharma Makes History in T20I Cricket Rankings

The biggest twist of the year in the cricketing rankings was in the T20I category, where India’s Abhishek Sharma earned the top spot in the batters category. The 24-year-old is now the third Indian cricketer in history to lead the batters ladder in T20I cricket ranking.

Abhishek has become the top ranker in cricket in a very short time. His standout moment was a sensational T20I century that he had against Zimbabwe last year. His recent efforts against South Africa and England enabled him to topple last year a leading Australian, Travis Head, who had been ranked number 1 for over a year.

This move by Head to miss the T20 series that Australia recently played against the West Indies has paved the way for the rise of Abhishek in the ranking of the game. Suryakumar Yadav replaced Head by acquiring the top position, and the first Indian at this top position between 2014-2017 was Virat Kohli.

In recent results, the 5-0 advantage by the nation of Australia over the West Indies has positively affected a number of the Australian players in the cricket ranking. Josh Inglis surged up 6 positions into ninth place, Tim David went up 12 positions to place 28th, and Cameron Green leaped a monumental 64 places to 24th place with the Player of the Series under his belt.

Australian Nathan Ellis and Sean Abbott have also gained points in the cricket standings when they were playing bowling. The trio-series win over South Africa and Zimbabwe saw Matt Henry gain tremendously as a player representing New Zealand.

Such current changes in the cricket rankings are indicative of the dynamic nature of international cricket because regular good performances have been known to result in quick movement of players in all forms of the game.