Rashid Climbs T20 Player Index

27 Mar Rashid Climbs T20 Player Index

Rashid Khan is closing in on the No.1 ranking in the men’s T20 Player Index after finishing third in the wicket-taking charts in the Pakistan Super League.

The Afghanistan allrounder climbed up to second in the rankings after picking up 20 wickets in 11 PSL outings to help Lahore Qalandars successfully defend their crown and is now just four points behind Sri Lanka’s Wanindu Hasaranga.

Glenn Maxwell, Jos Buttler and Hardik Pandya complete the top five while South Africa’s Aiden Markram has jumped two places to a career-high ranking of sixth.

Earlier in the year, the allrounder captained Sunrisers Eastern Cape to glory in the SA20, collecting player of the tournament honours in the process, to climb into the top 10 before impressing in South Africa’s recent T20I series against West Indies, scoring 52 runs at a strike rate of 173.33.

Moeen Ali (No.8) has dropped down two places to accommodate Markram while Liam Livingstone (No.7), Suryakumar Yadav (No.9) and Glenn Phillips (No.10) have retained their spots in the top 10.

Elsewhere, Mohammad Rizwan has returned to the top 20 after winning the PSL’s green cap. He scored a competition-leading 550 runs, including one century and four half-centuries, for runners-up Multan Sultans and has climbed nine places to No.16.

Fakhar Zaman, who scored a massive 27 sixes for the Qalandars in PSL8, sits just outside the top 100 at No.129 while Usman Khan has entered the top 500 for the first time, climbing over 100 places to No.445. The Multan Sultans batter scored 167 runs off just 84 deliveries to record the highest strike rate in the tournament (198.80).

With the ball, 21-year-old Abbas Afridi topped the wicket-taking charts with 23 dismissals while fellow youngster Ihsanullah picked up 22 wickets.

The Multan Sultans pair have both climbed into the top 1,000 for the first time, with Afridi jumping almost 800 places to No.506 and Ihsanullah rising to No.483 – over 2,000 places higher than his February ranking.

Bangladesh’s 3-0 series win over England has proved fruitful for a number of their players, most notably Najmul Hossain Shanto (No.199) who is inside the top 200 for the first time. The 24-year-old scored a series-leading 144 runs, including one half-century, at a strike rate of 127.43.

Opening batter Litton Das, who scored a half-century in the third T20I, has climbed 45 places to No.103, right-arm quick Taskin Ahmed has moved up to No.162 and veteran bowler Mustafizur Rahman is edging closer to a return to the top 50, rising from No.79 to No.57 after taking three wickets with an economy of 5.58.

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