Dawid Malan Replaces Babar Azam As No.1 T20I Batsman, KL Rahul Highest-Ranked Indian

England star Dawid Malan has moved to the top of the ICC T20I Rankings for the batsmen for the first time in his career after impressing in the recently-concluded series against Australia. The left-handed batsman has replaced Pakistan’s Babar Azam to move to the top spot.

The 33-year-old left-hander has progressed four places after finishing the series as the highest run-scorer. He scored 129 which included a player of the match effort of 66 in the first game as England won the series 2-1. Dawid Malan, whose previous best ranking was second in November last year, is now eight rating points ahead of Babar.

He has been doing extremely well with the bat since scoring 78 off 44 balls on his T20I debut against South Africa in 2017. So far, he has piled on 682 runs with the help of seven fifties and a century which came in New Zealand last year. The new no. one T20I batsman averages nearly 49 and has a strike rate of over 146.

Other gainers:

Among others who have made big gains in the rankings are Dawid Malan’s teammates Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler. Bairstow has gained three slots to reach a career-best 19th position after scoring 72 runs in the series while Buttler has moved from 40th to 28th after scoring 121 runs in two matches.

For Australia, captain Aaron Finch has retained his third spot after scoring 125 runs while Glenn Maxwell has also retained his sixth position.

England leg-spinner Adil Rashid has gained two slots to reach seventh position after finishing the series as the highest wicket-taker with six wickets. Australia spinner Ashton Agar’s five wickets have helped him retain third position, behind the Afghanistan spin pair of Rashid Khan and Mujeeb ur Rahman.

For India, KL Rahul at fourth spot is the highest ranked batsman while Virat Kohli at ninth is the only other Indian in the top ten. Among bowlers, no Indian features in the top ten and Jasprit Bumrah at twelfth is the highest-ranked bowler from India.

Here is the top ten T20I batsmen:

Here is the top ten T20I bowlers:

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