Heena Sharma Blog

Young opener Shafali Verma will go into the semifinals of the ongoing Women's T20 World Cup as the top ranked batter when the Indian team takes on England on Thursday at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Shafali's explosive batting at the top of the order saw her score 161 runs in four innings, including knocks of 47 and 46 against Sri Lanka and New Zealand, which helped her become only the second India batter after Mithali Raj to top the Women's T20I batting rankings. The 16-year-old has taken over from New Zealand's Suzie Bates, who had been the top batter since October 2018 after wresting the spot from West Indies captain Stafanie Taylor. Shafali's opening partner Smriti Mandhana has, meanwhile, gone down by two spots and is currently placed at the sixth position. Jemimah Rodrigues has also made a slip of two spots and finds herself at the ninth position in the latest rankings. Meanwhile, England's Sophie Ecclestone has attained the numero uno spot in...

India have dropped three places to fifth in the expanded men's Twenty20 International team rankings while Pakistan have consolidated their top position, according to the latest list issued by the ICC. The ICC Friday unveiled an expanded T20I team rankings table with 80 teams who will now be able to gauge their progress in a format, recognised by the world body as the vehicle for the growth of the game. Pakistan, ICC T20 World Cup champions in 2009, are now on 286 points while the next four teams are within two points of each other -- South Africa (262), England (261), Australia (261) and India (260). South Africa and India have swapped positions two and five in the expanded table, whose launch coincides with the annual rankings update in which series results from 2015-16 are removed and outcomes from 2016-17 and 2017-18 are weighted at 50 per cent. In other significant changes, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka have moved up one place each to seventh and eighth positions, re...

Talented wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav has moved up a notch to grab a career-best second position in the latest ICC T20 International rankings, where India maintained its second position behind Pakistan despite dropping two ranking points. Kuldeep scalped two for 26 in the final T20I against New Zealand, which his side lost by four runs to go 2-1 down in the series. The 24-year-old accounted for well-set openers Tim Seifert and Colin Munro in the only match he played during the series and reaped immediate dividends. He is now second only to Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan in the table. There are no other Indian bowler in the top-10. Kuldeep's spin bowling partner Yuzvendra Chahal after an indifferent series against New Zealand, dropped six places to be 17th while Bhuvneshwar Kumar maintained his 18th rank. In the batsmen's list, Indian vice-captain Rohit Sharma swapped three places with compatriot KL Rahul, who didn't feature in the recently-concluded serie...