Smriti Mandhana has become the No.1-ranked batter in the latest ICC Rankings for Women’s batters after scoring her fourth ODI century and an unbeaten 90 in the three-match series in New Zealand. India’s star batswoman moved up three places in the rankings to reach the top spot. She sits above the Australians Ellyse Perry and Meg Lanning, at No.2 and 3 respectively. New Zealand skipper Amy Satterthwaite jumped 10 places to reach the number 4 spot. Mithali Raj moved down one place and is now sitting on the fifth position.
Mandhana was named Women Cricket of the year 2018 and is batting on a different planet since the start of 2018. In 15 One-Day International matches that she has played since then, she scored two centuries and managed 8 half-centuries in that period. Suzie Bates reached to the sixth spot after her half-century against India in the third ODI game, where New Zealand defeated India after conceding the series.
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Jemimah Rodrigues was another Indian to have a good day at the rankings. She has played just seven ODIs since making her debut in March last year, but a half-century in the first ODI in Napier helped propel a massive rise of 64 places for the 18-year-old. She now sits at No.61 in the rankings.
Among the bowlers, there was less activity in the rankings, but there was good news for India’s spin trio of Deepti Sharma, Poonam Yadav and Ekta Bisht. Yadav and Sharma jumped five places each to reach the number 8 and 9 spot respectively. On the other hand, Bisht jumped nine places to reach 13th spot after taking five wickets in the series.
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Jhulan Goswami, whose 3/23 in the second ODI set up the series win, rose one place to No.4 and is the highest-ranked Indian in the top five, with Pakistan’s Sana Mir, Australia’s Megan Schutt and South Africa’s Marizanne Kapp above her.
