Even though India lost the three-ODI series against England last week, the team’s top-order batsmen — Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli — had good outings, strengthening their positions in the ICC rankings for ODI batsmen on Wednesday.
Daryl Mitchell of New Zealand continues to sit atop the rankings with 802 rating points, but the scores of 80 (retired hurt), 31 and 77 at Edgbaston, Cardiff and Lord’s respectively have now brought Gill within one rating point of joining the Kiwi. Kohli, who also got two fifties in three games, now finds himself at 767 rating points. Sharma, who boosted his career not a little at Lord’s with 138 , is at 758 rating points.
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Despite the fact that in the top four there are three Indians, the team’s performance on the field has been quite substandard. After winning the first game by six wickets, they came a cropper at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff and then at Lord’s. In the second one-dayer, there was a collective batting failure, with the exception of Kohli and new T20I skipper Shreyas Iyer. At Lord’s, after India, in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah, allowed England to make a mammoth 387/3, the game was pretty much over for the visitors. Sharma’s century brought India closer to the target, but that was all the team gained from it.
Joe Root is the biggest beneficiary in the rankings. He sees a jump of four places and breaks into the top-10 (8th) for the first time since 2020. Former captain Root made runs in all three matches with scores of 76, 99 and 74, and not even once he was dismissed. He has not now six consecutive fifties to his name. Root returned to ODIs last year in India. His previous appearance in ODIs was in the 2023 World Cup. The English batter now has 674 rating points.
Kuldeep out of top 10
Meanwhile, India now don’t have a single bowler in the top 10. Kuldeep Yadav was the only player in the top 10 prior to the series but he didn’t get a single game in the three-match rubber. He is now three places down to 11th. Bumrah, who has not played much one-day cricket in recent years, saw a jump of one place, and he is now 23rd in the rankings. Arshdeep Singh went down three places to a joint 30th position. Axar Patel, Man of the Match in Edgbaston, saw a jump of 10 places to 32nd.