Last Updated on 5 years by Charbel Coorey
Dawid Malan’s brilliant run in T20 internationals have propelled him to the top spot in the ICC T20I rankings for batsmen. The 33-year-old has replaced Babar Azam at the top of the standings. Malan is rated at 877 points, eight more than the Pakistani batsman. The southpaw has managed to attain the first place due to his fantastic performances in England’s recently concluded T20I series against Australia, where he notched up 129 runs in three innings at a strike rate of 138.70.
Malan has played merely 16 T20Is in his brief career so far but has already made a significant mark in the shortest format of the game. In the first T20I against Australia, he had set the tone for the contest by playing a sublime knock of 66 runs in 43 deliveries that included five boundaries and three sixes. He coupled that with another impressive inning of 42 runs at a scoring rate of 131.25 and aided Eoin Morgan’s side to conveniently chase the target in second match.
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The Roehampton-born batsman has scored 682 runs in 16 T20Is so far, which includes a century along with seven half-centuries. He bags runs at an average of 48.71 and his overall strike rate stands at 146.67. These are remarkable statistics, though, it remains to be seen if Malan manages to sustain such performances in the long run too. Regardless of that, he looks set to become an integral part of England’s playing XI for the two World T20s in the next couple of years.
The duo of Dawid Malan and Babar Azam are far ahead in terms of ratings in the T20I batsmen rankings. Aaron Finch and KL Rahul follow them in the standings, whereas the others like Colin Munro, Glenn Maxwell etc. have a lot of catching up to do. Despite his stellar outings in T20 cricket, Malan has played only a solitary ODI so far. He is not named in the squad for the upcoming three-match series against the Aussies. However, a call-up in the 50-over format squad is not far away for England’s latest star in white-ball cricket.
Written by Anjali Jha. Follow Anjali on Twitter today.
