ICC T20I Rankings: Babar six points adrift of top-ranked Malan
Pakistan batsman Babar Azam gained big to close in on England's Dawid Malan in the ICC T20I Rankings for Batsmen. Babar scored an impressive 133 runs against Zimbabwe in the recently concluded T20I series and is now trailing top-ranked Malan by six points. Pakistan thrashed Zimbabwe 3-0 at home to dominate the show. Here's more on the rankings.
Babar, who is currently the only player in the top five of all three formats in batting, had scores of 82 and 51 in the first two matches. However, the Pakistani skipper did not bat in the final match as his side won by eight wickets. Babar has 871 points and trails Malan (877). Australia's Aaron Finch is third on 835 points.
Babar raced to 1,681 career T20I runs from just 44 matches at 50.93. The right-handed batsman surpassed the likes of MS Dhoni (1,617), Chris Gayle (1,627) and AB de Villiers (1,672) in terms of career T20I runs. He is also 10 runs shy of surpassing Umar Akmal as the third-highest run-scorer for Pakistan. The celebrated T20I batsman now has 16 fifties under his belt.
Meanwhile, leg-spinner Usman Qadir has entered the rankings in 207th position after finishing as the most successful bowler in the series. Qadir went on to claim eight wickets in his debut series. The 27-year-old is averaging 7.50, besides having an economy rate of 5.45. The likes of Mohammad Hasnain, Wahab Riaz and Haris Rauf have made notable gains among the Pakistan bowlers.
Babar has already amassed 276 runs from six innings at an average of 55.20 in T20Is this year. He also has a strike rate of 144.50.
