India’s rising spinner Varun Chakravarthy has made significant strides in the ICC men’s T20Is bowler’s rankings following his recent exploits against England in the ongoing five-match T20I series. In addition, Tilak Varma will be eyeing Travis Head’s position at the top of the batting charts.
Varun has been in brilliant form of late and has picked a total 10 wickets in the last three T20Is against England that were held in Kolkata, Chennai and Rajkot respectively. His best performance in the ongoing series was in the recently-held game in Rajkot where he picked up a five-wicket haul. But his performance went in vain as the Indian batters could not capitalise on their chase to lose the game by 26 runs.
While Chakravarthy’s performances garnered significant praise, his England counterpart, Adil Rashid has been quietly racking up some good performances to reclaim the top spot in the Men’s T20I rankings among bowlers. The leg-spinner has amassed a total of 718 points, edging closer to his career-best when he amassed 746 in 2022.
England pacer Jofra Archer also jumped 13 spots to sixth overall after two wickets in the Rajkot match.
India spinner Axar Patel sits just outside the top 10 after moving up five spots to 11th on the same list, while there is a new challenger to Australia star Travis Head at the top of the rankings for T20I batters after young left-hander Tilak Varma jumped one spot to second.
While Head still holds a 23-point lead at the top of the batter rankings, Varma is hot on his heels following scores of 19 not out, 72 not out and 18 from three hits for India so far against England.
He could theoretically overtake Head with a pair of good scores during the final two matches of the series, with Head currently representing Australia against Sri Lanka at Test level in Galle.
If Varma does manage to overtake Head, he will become the youngest-ever player to top the rankings. The current record for that is held by Babar Azam, who became the No.1-ranked T20I batter at the age of just 23 years and 105 days.
Varma’s 832 points are the fourth-best by an Indian batter in the batting rankings, bettered only by Suryakumar Yadav, Virat Kohli, and KL Rahul.
Abhishek Sharma (up 59 places to 40th) also makes big gains up the list for T20I batters, while Liam Livingstone (up five places to equal 32nd) and Ben Duckett (up 28 rungs to equal 68th) are the biggest movers from an England perspective.