Follow UsLeftie batter Abhishek Sharma only burst into the arena of international cricket last year, and he has already climbed massively to continue his meteoric rise in the cricketing world. The youngster from Punjab has now joined Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav to become only the third Indian player to become the Number 1 T20I batter in the world.
In the process, Abhishek also ended Australian opener and his Sunrisers Hyderabad teammate Travis Head’s reign at the top of the T20I batter rankings, who took over from Suryakumar Yadav at the end of the 2024 T20 World Cup.
In his short T20I career, Abhishek has already scored two centuries — one, in his debut series against Zimbabwe, and the second, against England, where he scored 135. He has a superb strike rate of 193.8 after 17 games for India in the format, and the result is reflected in the recently published T20I rankings by ICC.
Meanwhile, Joe Root has strengthened his hold on being the best-ranked Test batter in the world after a profitable series against India. Rishabh Pant also moved one spot ahead to seventh after his fighting half-century against England, where he battled a fracture in his toe.
However, the southpaw opener Yashasvi Jaiswal has had a quiet series so far, and has dropped three spots to eighth on the Test batter rankings.
Ravindra Jadeja was the other Indian who benefited a lot from his recent performances, as he reached a career-high 29th rank amongst batters, and strengthened his hold on the Number 1 Test all-rounder rankings. His teammate Jasprit Bumrah has maintained his number one spot on the Test bowlers’ rankings.