Shaheen Afridi Becomes No.1 Bowler, Babar Azam Holds On To Narrow Lead

In the latest ICC ODI rankings, Pakistan spearhead Shaheen Shah Afridi became the No.1 bowler for the first time, while his teammate Babar Azam continued the slender lead at the top of the batting charts ahead of Shubman Gill.

Afridi was in critical condition during the ongoing World Cup. With 16 wickets, he is tied with Australian tweaker Adam Zampa as the player with the most wickets at the event. The lanky left-arm pacer helped Pakistan survive in the semi-final against Bangladesh on October 31 with a score of 3-29. Thanks to the purple patch, he improved his nine places and was crowned Numero Uno Bowler of the Season for the first time.

Josh Hazlewood (2nd), Mohammad Siraj and Keshav Maharaj each dropped one place as Afridi jumped a huge 7th place.

On the other hand, spinners Kuldeep Yadav (7th) and Mujeeb Ur Rahman (8th) are the other players who have moved up two places in the top 10 thanks to their jumps.

In the batting rankings, Babar Azam maintained the top spot with 818 points, but the former’s poor performance with the bat against Bangladesh narrowed the gap between him and Gil in second place to just two points. Babar scored 216 runs in 7 innings in the 2023 World Cup with a below-average average of 30.85 and batting average of 77.69. His rival Gill was also not much of a high-profile player, and in four innings he could only score 104 runs.

David Warner moves up one place to fourth place thanks to his 413 points in the World Cup, while India captain Rohit Sharma moves up three places to fifth place thanks to his impressive 398 points .

Shakib Al Hasan remained the best all-rounder, with South Africa’s Marco Jansen moving up two places to finish in 9th place.

Latest men’s ICC ODI rankings

Batting charts

1 Babar Azam2 Shubman Gill
3 Quinton de Kock
4 David Warner
5 Rohit Sharma
6 Henrich Klaassen
7 Virat Kohli8 Harry Tector< br>9 Rassie van der Dussen10 David Malan