Leg-spinners ruling T20Is

Following their clean sweep in the T20I series against Australia, Pakistan remains top of the ICC T20I rankings, but it’s the player rankings that make for interesting reading.

The top five T20I bowlers in the world are all leg-spinners: Rashid Khan, Shadab Khan, Ish Sodhi, Yuzvendra Chahal and Adil Rashid, the latter having just entered the top five.

Pakistan’s left-arm orthodox spinner Imad Wasim took 1-8 in his four overs in the second T20I against Australia, along with 3-20 and 0-33 in the other two T20Is, in the process rising 14 places in the rankings to claim 10th spot.

New Zealand’s left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner is in at sixth place, West Indian leggie Samuel Badree is at seven and South Africa’s legendary leg-spinner Imran Tahir holds on to eighth position. Ironically, nine out of the top 10 T20I bowlers are all spinners, eight of them of the leg-spinning variety. Australia’s right-arm paceman Billy Stanlake is in at No 9, the only speed merchant in the top 10.

Bowler Rankings – T20Is

Source: ICC. Last updated – 29 October 2018

On the batting front, Pakistan’s Babar Azam’s scores of 68 not out, 45 and 50 in the series against Australia lifted him five places up to the top of the batting rankings.

England’s Jason Roy also made moves up the rankings after smashing 69 off 36 balls in England’s 30-run win over Sri Lanka in their one-off T20I match. The innings moved Roy up five places into ninth spot on the batting list with a career-high 688 rating points.

Men’s T20I Team Rankings