The ICC Rankings are the leaderboards for the cricket teams and players in all formats of the sport. There is an official ICC Ranking that the International Cricket Council updates on a weekly basis. As of now, the men’s and the women’s cricket teams have a proper ranking system.
The men’s division has team rankings for all three formats. On an individual basis, the ICC ranks the players in three different categories – batsmen, bowlers and all-rounders. Speaking of ICC Rankings, some players are surprisingly above the others on the charts. Quite a few rankings of players have gone viral because of their bizarre nature. In this listicle today, we will look at the five bizarre things about the current ICC Rankings (as on July 2, 2021).
1. 2-time T20 World Cup winners West Indies are below Afghanistan in ICC Rankings
The ICC T20I Rankings features a total of 82 countries. The Top 10 in the charts are all Test-playing nations. Interestingly, two-time T20 World Cup champions West Indies are not present in the Top 5.
Surprisingly, the ICC has placed them in the eighth position right now, below the Afghanistan cricket team. It is pertinent to note that Afghanistan has lost four of its seven T20I matches against West Indies.
2. Kedar Jadhav is ahead of Shreyas Iyer in ICC ODI Rankings for Batsmen
Babar Azam, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are the Top 3 batsmen in the ICC ODI Rankings at the moment. The Top 10-20 batsmen often remain in their positions, but the fans do not always note the batsmen in the Top 100.
Kedar Jadhav, who has not played a single ODI match since February 2020, is still in the Top 50. He is in the 43rd position and well ahead of Shreyas Iyer, who has scored two fifties and one century in his last seven knocks. Iyer is in the 73rd position. Even Ravindra Jadeja (89th rank) and Rishabh Pant (92nd rank) are way behind Jadhav.
3. Ross Taylor is behind Suryakumar Yadav
Suryakumar Yadav has played three T20 internationals and performed very well for India. But he has not aggregated even 100 runs, and still, he has got a place above Ross Taylor, Marcus Stoinis and Rishabh Pant in the rankings.
Taylor is a batsman who has played more than 100 T20 internationals for the Blackcaps and performed decently. It is tough to understand if recent form is considered or not, because Jadhav is ahead of Pant in the ODI charts, while Suryakumar is ahead of Pant in the T20I charts.
4. Kagiso Rabada is not even in Top 90 of Rankings for Bowlers
South African speedster Kagiso Rabada who won the IPL Purple Cap in the 2020 season is sitting in the 91st position of the rankings for bowlers in T20I cricket. English all-rounder Ben Stokes is ahead of him.
Interestingly, India’s Pandya brothers – Krunal and Hardik also hold a better position in the ICC T20I Rankings than Rabada. For the record, Kagiso has taken 36 wickets in 30 T20I matches so far.
5. Trent Boult is ahead of Glenn Maxwell in All-Rounders’ rankings
Trent Boult is undoubtedly one of the best bowlers in the world, but he is not equally good batsman, especially in ODI cricket. Boult’s highest score in his ODI career is 21*.
Still, the Kiwi player holds a place above Glenn Maxwell in the ICC ODI Rankings for All-rounders. Boult is 18th at the moment with 202 points. Even Rabada is at 17th with 205 points, whereas Glenn Maxwell is in the 20th position with 200 rating points to his name.
