Team India skipper Shreyas Iyer has climbed two places to No. 7 in the latest ICC men’s T20I batting rankings after the five-match series against New Zealand. His fifty in the final T20I at Seddon Park on November 1 did most of the work. India were 19 for 2 after Adam Milne removed both openers inside the first four overs, and Iyer and Ishan Kishan rebuilt with a stand of 93 off 7.1 overs for the third wicket.
Iyer’s 50 came off 23 balls, and Kishan made 61 off 32, but India’s 191 for 8 was chased down with 12 balls to spare. Iyer ended the series with 126 runs across five innings at 25.20, and the Hamilton fifty was his highest score of the tour.
Sanju Samson went the other way, dropping seven places to 27th. The wicketkeeper-batter made 67 in the series opener at Christchurch and then 40 runs across his other four innings without once passing 20. His series tally of 107 runs at 21.40 told the same story as the ranking slide.
Abhishek Sharma holds the No. 1 spot, and Ishan Kishan stays third. Abhishek’s 197 runs in five innings came at a strike rate of 224, the centerpiece a 35-ball century in the third T20I at Wellington, where he made 113 as India chased down 199 for the loss of four wickets. Kishan missed two matches with an injury but scored a brilliant 61 off 32 balls in the series finale in Hamilton.
Indian bowlers suffer drops in T20I bowler rankings
Team India’s bowlers suffered drops in the T20I bowler rankings, starting with Axar Patel, who slipped three places to 14th. He played four matches in New Zealand and took three wickets while conceding 10.53 runs an over.
Arshdeep Singh dropped a place to 17th, though the series still brought him a milestone. His dismissal of Mitchell Santner in the fourth T20I made him the first Indian to 150 T20I wickets, and it also gave him the most T20I wickets by a Full Member bowler in a calendar year.
Jasprit Bumrah fell four places to 31st. He was rested for the New Zealand tour, so the slide came with him out of action rather than performance, while Varun Chakaravarthy also dropped four places to 34th.
India won the series 3-2, though they only dominated the first half of the series. Iyer’s side took the opening three matches to seal the series with two games to spare, then lost at Eden Park by 87 runs and at Seddon Park by seven wickets.
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Edited by Venkatesh Ravichandran
