Flamboyant Suryakumar Yadav was at his destructive best with a stellar knock of 69 off 35 deliveries which was a blitzkrieg on the Australian team. On the back of this flashy knock, Surya has surged to the No.2 in the latest ICC T20 ranking. He has again gone past Pakistan’s skipper Babar Azam who is also in red hot form in the ongoing T20I series against England where he scored a cracking century.
The shuffle in the ranking is a significant one that saw him jump to three spots up ahead of Babar Azam and South Africa’s Aiden Markram. Surya is now only behind Pakistan’s wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan ranked no.1 and has 861 points vis-a-vis Suryakumar with 801 points. Although it is to be noted that the deficit of points between ‘SKY’ and Babar is just two points as the righ-handed star India batter is leading by two points with Babar hot on Yadav’s heels.
After a grand century against England (117 off 55) in a T20I at Nottingham, Suryakumar didn’t have a memorable Asia Cup 2022 with only one-half century against Hong Kong.
Surya grappled with the issue of settling down early and being dismissed afterward at the recent Asia Cup. However, in the home T20I series against Australia, he was among the runs and a bulk of them exponentially came at the first and third T20I against the might of Australia. Surya scored a total of 115 runs in 3 matches which also led to him rising through the ranks after a slump in the Asia Cup.
Surya is all set to play the approaching T20I series against South Africa at home where he hopes to continue the cracking form and regale his fans.
Virat Kohli is also another player who is touted to have returned to his old self with the willow after reaffirming his comeback against Australia with a 65-run knock.
Kohli is now ranked 15th trumping Gurbaaz of Afghanistan
KL Rahul has been dropped four spots despite a classy knock in the first T20I with a quickfire knock of 55 off 35 balls, but the following two matches were catastrophic for the opener as he failed to leave a mark.
The pick of the bowlers and the player of the series, Axar Patel had an exhilarating outing against Australia in the absence of injured Ravindra Jadeja where he bagged eight wickets with a frugal strike rate of 6.30 in three matches. He moves up to the 18th spot which is an elevation of 11 spots.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar sinks one spot to the 10th rank as his floundering with the ball continues to be a concern.
