On Friday, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has revealed the new updated T20I rankings. Pakistan has managed to continue their no.1 position in the latest rankings. The 2009 World T20 winners Pakistan are on 286 points followed by South Africa (262), England (261), Australia (261) and India (260). In the current rankings, there are some changes considering the changed criteria as the series results from 2015-16 are removed and outcomes from 2016-17 and 2017-18 are weighted at 50 percent.
South Africa and India have swapped positions two and five in the expanded table. Afghanistan and Sri Lanka move up one place each to 7th and 8th positions respectively with two-time World T20 winners West Indies tumbling down to the ninth position. Meanwhile, Nepal, one of the most exciting teams on the cricketing fraternity to have moved to 11th spot in the rankings.
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Austria, Botswana, Luxembourg, and Mozambique are some of the new entrants into the Men’s T20I ranking table, which features all the teams who have played at least six matches against other ICC member countries since May 2016. ICC had decided last year that all men’s T20 matches between members from January 1, 2019, will be classified as international games and hence the T20I men’s rankings table was expanded.
Currently, the ICC is conducting the qualifications process for the upcoming Men’s ICC World T20 2020, to be held in Australia. During the process, 58 T20I matches will be played which will also mean that there will be possibly significant changes in rankings in coming time.
The first final was held in Papua New Guinea (PNG) last month whilst the Africa final in Uganda (19-24 May), the Europe final in Guernsey (15-19 June), the Asia final in Singapore (22-28 July) and the Americas final in the USA (19-25 August) are still to come.
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Six of the teams will join UAE, Hong Kong, Ireland, Netherlands, Oman, PNG, Scotland, and Zimbabwe in the World T20 2020 global qualifiers, and will get an opportunity to improve their rankings in recent times.
