Dawid Malan edged past Babar Azam and three other batsmen to claim the top slot of the ICC International Cricket Council T20I Rankings for Batting.
Malan had 877 points for 1st rank while Babar of Pakistan had claimed 869 points for the 2nd slot.
The points difference between two batsmen is just 8 and that is also for certain reason – games at home ground. During the 2020 season, 33 years old Malan had scored 224 runs with 2 half centuries in 7 T20Is Twenty 20 Internationals. Malan played 3 T20Is against visiting Pakistan and as many T20Is against visiting Australia. Malan was benefited from the T20Is at his home ground England.
On the other hand, the former top ranked batsman Babar Azam of Pakistan was discredited mainly because he had played most of the T20Is abroad during the recent season. Other than having the 2nd rank in T20I batting, 25 years old Babar Azam is the joint-fastest batsman to reach 1500 T20I runs. Babar shares this feat with Australia’s Aaron Finch and India’s Virat Kohli who reached the 1500 runs milestone in the same number of innings.
Additionally, Babar holds an extraordinary record in the ICC batting rankings, by being the only batsman who occupies a place in the top-five spots of all three formats – Tests, ODIs One Day Internationals and T20Is.
The British batsman Malan scored the highest 129 runs during the recent 3 T20Is series between England and visiting Australia. Before the series he was at Rank 4. However, now he is at Rank 1. In the past, during New Zealand versus visiting England T20Is series Malan as batsman was elevated to position 3 in ICC T20I Rankings. Malan had claimed 682 runs with 8 fifty plus scores in 16 T20Is. Malan holds the England record for the fastest T20I hundred.
