India T20I opener Abhishek Sharma has moved up to the number two position in the world in the latest ICC rankings. And in the process, he has gone past an archrival. Yes, it’s Sahibzada Farhan of Pakistan who has been displaced from that position. The left-handed batsman is having a great outing in the ongoing T20I series against Afghanistan. In the first match, he scored a 32-ball 82, and he followed it up with a 39 off 19 balls in the second, and India won both matches comfortably.
India’s No.3 Ishan Kishan continues to be the number one batsman in the format. The last few days have been just brilliant for Kishan. First, he led East Zone to the Duleep Trophy win against South Zone in Chennai, just three days before the first T20I. And more than that, he contributed heavily in that game, scoring 270 and 80 across both innings. That first-innings double century of his sealed the deal for East Zone in many ways. In the first T20I, Kishan scored a 33-ball 42, a bit slow by his high standards. However, in the second game of the three-match rubber, he improved significantly, scoring a 23-ball 38 not out.
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Abhishek is 51 rating points behind Kishan at present. Among other notable jumps from an Indian point of view, pacer Jasprit Bumrah has made his way back to the top-10 of the world after a solid showing in the ongoing series. The fast bowler has seen a jump of seven places. Although he has not taken many wickets, he has continued to be a threat and economical.
Bumrah has looked great
Bumrah, as fans would know, doesn’t play T20 cricket often. Against lesser teams, he doesn’t play at all, but the Afghanistan series was a bit different because he had not played any cricket since the ODI series against England in July. He missed the two-Test series against Sri Lanka in August — where he was badly missed — and Afghanistan matches are kinds of warm-ups and opportunities to assess his match fitness as India are set to feature in the Asian Games later this month. The Indian team is taking the Asian Games assignment very seriously and has announced a very strong squad under Shreyas Iyer.
Arshdeep Singh, meanwhile, has gone up to the 14th place, having seen a jump of 11 places. Varun Chakaravarthy also saw a jump of two places to 5th in the rankings, but now he has been ruled out of the Asian Games after picking up a side strain against Afghanistan. Not only the Asian Games, but he has also been ruled out of the historic one-off T20I game against Japan later this month. Chakaravarthy didn’t play in Tuesday’s second game against the Afghans.