England cricket team completely outplayed their Australian counterparts in a recently concluded 5-match ODI series in which the Englishmen whitewashed the visitors. The series win has earned immense rise for the English players in the latest ICC ODI Player Rankings after an impressive 5-0 series whitewash of Australia that exhibited the top-ranked side’s potential a year ahead of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, to be held in England and Wales from 30 May to 14 July.
Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler, and Jason Roy, who made the whitewash possible witnessed huge gains. Bairstow took a leap of 4 places o reach the 11th position after aggregating 300 runs in the Australia series, which followed a fighting 105 against Scotland. Player of the Series Buttler has gained two positions to reach 16th place with 275 runs against Australia including an unbeaten 110 in the final match while Roy has moved up three places to 20th position.
Alex Hales (up one place to 22nd) and captain Eoin Morgan (up one place to 24th) are the others to advance for England while Australia’s Travis Head (up three places to 19th) has gained after aggregating 194 runs in the series.
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England spinners Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali finished with 12 wickets each in the series and that has reflected in the latest rankings update, which also takes into account the one-off ODI in Edinburgh which saw Scotland pull off a surprise six-run win over England.
Australia have slipped to sixth place in the ODI team rankings and among the other losers are Mark Wood (up five places to 28th) and David Willey (up 23 places to 43rd) are the others to move up for England while Australia pace bowler Mark Watt has gained 26 places to finish the series in 67th position. For Australia, Kane Richardson’s six wickets in three matches have helped him move from 84th to 77th position.
England has recovered to finish with 126 points after slipping from 125 to 123 points with their defeat against to Scotland in the one-off ODI preceding this series. England is currently four points ahead of second-placed India, who they play in a three-match home series from 12 to 17 July. England will retain the top spot even if they lose the India series 2-1 but a 3-0 loss will see India back at the top of the table.
Click here to see the latest ICC ODI Rankings.
