The battle of securing the top stop of the ICC Men’s T20I Batter Rankings continues to heat up as Pakistani duo Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam get the chance to close in on India’s rising star Suryakumar Yadav at the head of proceedings.
The Pakistani opener moved up to third on the rankings that were updated by the ICC on Wednesday and will get a further opportunity to make inroads on Suryakumar when Pakistan start their five-game T20I series against New Zealand on Friday.
Both Babar and Rizwan sat out Pakistan’s most recent T20I series against Afghanistan and will be eager to score freely against the Black Caps, who are coming off a narrow 2-1 series triumph over Sri Lanka at home.
While Suryakumar currently holds a commanding lead at the top of the T20I rankings for batters with 906 rating points, second-placed Rizwan (811) and third-placed Babar (755) could make progress while the India star is playing in the IPL.
While it was Devon Conway’s absence from New Zealand’s series against Sri Lanka that led to Babar improving one place to third on the latest set of rankings, with Conway also at the IPL with the Chennai Super Kings.
