Pakistan skipper Babar Azam’s stranglehold at the top of the ICC Men’s ODI Batter Rankings is under threat after Indian opener Shubman Gill has maintained his spot at the number two position and has a chance of displacing him. Gill has made fifties in the ongoing Asia Cup 2023 in four matches and has closed the gap between him and Babar.
India are yet to taste defeat at the Asia Cup, and much of their success has been down to a dominant top order that has been led superbly by Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, and skipper Rohit Sharma.
Gill already has two half-centuries at the tournament and a total of 154 runs and the right-hander has been rewarded in the latest rankings by rising to a career-best second-placed with just Pakistan skipper Babar Azam ahead of him.
And Gill has closed the margin considerably on the Pakistan captain, with the gap at the top down to just 103 rating points now with Babar leading the way on 863 rating points and the India opener with 759 points.
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Gill isn’t the only India star on the move, with Kohli rising two places to eighth and Rohit jumping two spots of his own to ninth on the latest batter rankings, which means India has three players inside the top 10 for the first time in more than four and a half years.
You have to go way back to the start of 2019 to find the last time India had three players this high in the rankings for ODI batters, with opener Shikhar Dhawan joining Rohit and Virat inside the top 10 way back in January of that year.
Pakistan still has three players of their own inside the top 10 batters, but Imam-ul-Haq drops one place to fifth, and fellow opener Fakhar Zaman loses three spots and is now 10th.
Experienced India spinner Kuldeep Yadav has also made some ground on the updated list for ODI bowlers, with the left-arm rising five places to seventh on the back of his nine wickets at the Asia Cup and teammate Hardik Pandya improving four places to sixth on the ODI all-rounder rankings.
There was also some joy for Pakistan’s bowlers on the rankings update, with pace duo Haris Rauf (up eight places to 21st) and Naseem Shah (up 11 spots to equal 51st) improving dramatically despite picking up a niggling injuries during their most recent encounter against India.
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