The Indian opener, KL Rahul has reached his career-best No.2 position in the ICC rankings for T20I batsmen as he smashed 224 runs from 5 matches against New Zealand. He was named man-of-the-series after India became the first team in history to whitewash the opposition in a 5-match series. This is only the third instance when India have clean-swept the opponents in away T20I series and the first time in a five-match series.
In the T20I series, Rahul registered the scores of 56, 57*, 27, 39 and 45 against New Zealand and with that he has reached the 823 rating points while Pakistan’s Babar Azam retained his top spot with 879 points.
Rahul has recently also started donning the wicketkeeping gloves. In the second ODI against Australia, Rahul took over wicketkeeping duties from Rishabh Pant who suffered a concussion in the was ruled out with a concussion. Since then, Rahul has appeared to solve India’s middle-order issues and has established himself as a potent partner for Rohit Sharma.
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In fact, Rohit Sharma, who hit two half-centuries in the T20I series against New Zealand after a poor start, has also managed to reach the top-10 of the T20I rankings. That means, India now have 3 batsmen in the top-10. Virat Kohli, with 673 points, is at No.9 followed by Rohit at No.10.
Many India and Pakistan players have risen in the @MRFWorldwide ICC T20I Rankings after their series wins over New Zealand and Bangladesh 👏
Updated rankings ▶️ https://t.co/EdMBsm6zwM pic.twitter.com/W17ZCxnrf6
— ICC (@ICC) February 3, 2020
Meanwhile, Jasprit Bumrah has also taken a leap of 26 position to reach the joint-11th spot after a spectacular performance in the last T20I where he was named man-of-the-match with figures of 3 for 12. As a team, the Indian team has witnessed a gain of one position as now they are standing at the 4th place. Pakistan, Australia and England occupy the top-3 positions.
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Now, the men in blue will be playing a three-match ODI series against the Kiwi with the first game scheduled to be played at the Seddon Park in Hamilton on Wednesday.
