Shreyas Iyer and Pathum Nissanka move up, Virat Kohli drops out of top ten

Shreyas Iyer was the Player of the Series in India’s 3-0 T20I sweep against Sri Lanka after scoring 204 runs with three unbeaten half-centuries, and that has given him a remarkable promotion of 27 places to No. 18 in the ICC rankings for T20I batters. Even as Iyer gained, Virat Kohli, who was rested for the series, dropped out of the top ten to 15th, while Pathum Nissanka‘s 75 in the second game helped him get to ninth place, a rise of six spots.

Away in New Zealand, South Africa completed a remarkable bounce back as they won the second Test in Christchurch to square the series. Kagiso Rabada was the Player of the Match there for his eight wickets in the game – to go with a handy innings of 47 – and that meant a sharp rise of three spots to No. 3 among Test bowlers. Only Pat Cummins and R Ashwin are now above him.

Following New Zealand’s disappointing performance, Kyle Jamieson dropped two spots to fifth and Tim Southee went down one spot to sixth among Test bowlers, while Devon Conway‘s 92 in the second innings took him up six places to No. 17.

Back to T20Is, and Muhammad Waseem‘s 112 in 66 balls in the final of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier A against Ireland not only gave UAE the title, it also put him at No. 12 among batters in the format. This is now the highest any UAE batter has reached on the T20I rankings, with Waseem topping the 13th place achieved by Shaiman Anwar in 2017.

Rohan Mustafa had a decent tournament in Al Amerat with ball and bat too, as he scored 96 runs in four innings and picked up eight wickets – that moved him up to sixth place among allrounders, one below his career-high of fifth, which he achieved in February 2020.

Across in Bangladesh, the home side won an ODI series against Afghanistan 2-1. Litton Das hit 136 and 86 in the second and third matches there, which put him at a career-best 32nd among batters, and while Mehidy Hasan Miraz dropped two spots to seventh among bowlers, Rashid Khan re-entered the top ten – at No. 9 – after picking up five wickets.