Pakistani skipper Babar Azam maintained his position as the number-one batter in ODI cricket after the latest International Cricket Council (ICC) rankings update on Wednesday.
Azam, 29, stayed on top of the rankings with 836 ratings, he is followed closely by India’s right-handed opener Shubman Gill who is ranked second with 818 ratings.
Apart from those two, South Africa’s Quinton de Kock improved his rankings by one rank and dethroned his teammate Rassie van der Dussen after scoring two centuries in the ongoing ICC World Cup 2023.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s opening duo of Imam-ul-Haq and Fakhar Zaman, who were previously ranked under the top 10 batters, are now ranked 10th and 13th respectively.
Fakhar was dropped out of the top 10 list because of poor form as the batter had not crossed the 30-run mark in his last eight innings.
Other than that, Azam is the only batter to be in the top five of T20I and Test cricket. He is ranked fourth in the shorter format rankings with a 734 rating while in the longer format rankings, he is at number four with 829 ratings.
Meanwhile, in the bowler's rankings, only Shaheen Shah Afridi is in the top 10 of the Test rankings while there is no bowler from Pakistan in the T20I and ODI rankings.
It must be noted that earlier this year, Pakistan became the number-one ODI team for the first time in their history under the leadership of Babar Azam.
Until now, the 29-year-old represented Pakistan in 264 matches over all three formats and has amassed a total of 12,731 runs at an impressive 49.15 average.
It is worth mentioning that Azam is one of the very few batters in the world to have a century in all three formats. His high score in Test cricket is 196, which came against the mighty Australia as he stood till the last day and helped Pakistan avoid a defeat in March 2022.
His high score in ODI is 158, which he scored against England in July 2021 in Birmingham. In T20I, his high score is 122, which came against South Africa in April 2021.
- Babar Azam
