12 Sep Ecclestone World T20 No.1
Sophie Ecclestone has become the second Englishwoman to top the T20 Player Index following a fruitful international and domestic summer.
She joins an elite list including previous incumbent Ash Gardner, Ellyse Perry, Sophie Devine and countrywoman Katherine Sciver-Brunt after staging a devastating run up the rankings in recent months.
The 24-year-old, currently sidelined after dislocating her shoulder, has enjoyed a stellar English season, headlined by taking five wickets and scoring her run at a strike rate of 169.23 in the T20I Ashes series win over Australia.
Ecclestone also claimed seven for Manchester Originals in the women’s Hundred and finished the Charlotte Edwards Cup with six scalps in four matches.
Gardner scored 72 runs and took two wickets across those matches at Edgbaston, Kia Oval and Lord’s – where record crowds assembled – but has dropped off the top of the standings for the first time since December 2022.
England vice-captain and Trent Rockets skipper Nat Sciver-Brunt is up to a career-high No.3, scoring 216 runs at a strike rate of 160 during the 100-ball competition.
Top 10 mainstay Marizanne Kapp, despite being named player of the tournament in the women’s Hundred (147 runs, 11 wickets), drops down to No.4 but West Indies allrounder Hayley Matthews is up to a career-high fifth.
Australian Grace Harris soars into the top 10 after scoring her 114 runs during The Hundred at a strike-rate of 150, and she is joined for the first time by teenager Alice Capsey who has hit fifties this summer in the CS Cup, against Australia and in The Hundred for Oval Invincibles.
But there can be no doubt about the outstanding improver of the latest update, with Ireland’s 17-year-old wicketkeeper Amy Hunter climbing over 200 places to No.92 due to her 187 runs and six stumpings in half a dozen T20Is in 2023. That run includes a career-best 49 not out in a 10-wicket defeat of Netherlands in Amstelveen in August.
To see the women’s Index rankings please click here.