Babar Azam becomes No 1 batter in T20I rankings, ends Dawid Malan’s reign

Pakistan skipper Babar Azam’s stupendous form in the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup continued against Namibia as he played a brilliant knock of 70 runs off just 49 balls and has now become the No 1 batter in the world as ICC released the new rankings on Wednesday.

Babar dethroned England No 3 Dawid Malan, who has acquired the top spot since September 2020. The lack of runs from his bat of late and Babar’s form have meant that the latter now has a lead of 36 rating points. The other significant movement was of South Africana batter Aiden Markram, who dropped down three places to grab the sixth sport behind Mohammad Rizwan and Virat Kohli.

However, the major displacement has been of England opener Jos Buttler, who broke into the top 10 jumping up eight places to be now at the ninth spot, after two outstanding knocks of 71* and 101* against Australia and Sri Lanka respectively.

As far as the bowling is concerned, Sri Lanka leg-spinner displace Tabraiz Shamsi to now be the No1 bowler in the T20Is as the South African spinner dropped down one spot. The big gainers in bowling were pacer Anrich Nortje, who jumped 18 places to be 7th spot, England pacer Chris Jordan jumped four places to be now at 9th place and New Zealand leggie Ish Sodhi rose six places to be at the 10th place.

Liam Livingstone broke into the top 10 in the all-rounders’ list after having bowled brilliantly in England’s last two games.