The Indian women’s team is standing at the fifth position while three-time world champions Australia is leading the 46-team table as the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Friday launched global Women’s T20I Team Rankings. The ICC’s move to launch the women’s T20I rankings follows its decision earlier this year to award international status to all T20 matches between member countries.
The ICC release said, “Whilst Scotland is the top-ranked associate member in 11th and Thailand take 12th place in the first table. All women’s T20 matches between members have international status since the Asia Cup in June and the new rankings system will help teams gauge where they stand in the shortest format of the game.”
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In his statement about the same, ICC CEO David Richardson, “We are committed to growing the game and T20 is the vehicle through which we’ll do this. Global rankings and international status for all T20 games between members is a huge step forward and will contribute to our efforts to accelerate the growth of the women’s game. The new rankings will provide the incentive for teams to play regularly and mark their progress globally. I wish teams all the best.”
Australia, who were top-ranked in the combined rankings system, are now ranked number one in both forms of the game and lead Trans-Tasman rivals New Zealand by three points in the T20I rankings table. Australia are on 280 points, New Zealand on 277 while England is just a further one point behind with 276 points.
The list includes nine sides from Europe, 14 from Asia, 13 from Africa, four each from East Asia Pacific and the Americas, apart from Australia and the West Indies. India captain Harmanpreet Kaur welcomed the move.
Talking about the same, Kaur said, “I’m sure these rankings will encourage more countries to play the game regularly and teams will get a good idea of where they stand in the global context. Players always take interest in the ICC rankings as they are a true reflection of where teams and players stand.”
