Pakistani skipper Babar Azam has ascended to the second spot in the ICC rankings of the best batsman in the T20I format. He has outperformed Australia’s Aaron Finch in the rankings with 844 points. The rankings are released following the recently concluded series against South Africa.
Pakistan has claimed a win against South Africa in T20I and ODI series last week. The team has now reached Zimbabwe for the cricket series.
Babar Azam is just a few points away from England’s Dawid Malan who sits at the top position with 892 points. He became the highest run-scorer of the T20I series against South Africa with 210 runs at an average of 52.50 in four innings. During the series, Azam also scored his maiden T20I century.
Movement in the @MRFWorldwide ICC men's T20I Batting Rankings with @babarazam258 moving up to second 📈
Full list 👉 https://t.co/y6w2zMiR7l pic.twitter.com/XgbmVz5E7c
— ICC (@ICC) April 21, 2021
Last week, he had officially dethroned Indian skipper Virat Kohli to become the world’s top ODI batsman as per the latest rankings released by ICC.
Read more: Babar Azam finally topples Virat Kohli to become top ODI batsman
Babar Azam is now at the top spot with 865 points while Virat Kohli has dropped to the second spot with 857 points. Pakistan captain has ended the three-year reign of Virat Kohli at the top spot in the ICC rankings.
Azam achieved the feat after scoring 228 runs in the recently concluded three-match ODI series against South Africa that Pakistan won with 2-1.
This is the first time Babar Azam has been declared the top ODI batsman in the world before former cricketer Muhammad Yousaf had the honor in 2003. Overall, he is the fourth Pakistani batsman to achieve the feat after Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad, and Mohammad Yousuf.
Since last week, fans had been anxiously waiting for the ICC’s ranking as they were hopeful that the skipper of the Pakistan cricket team, Babar Azam, would topple Indian skipper Virat Kohli from the top ICC ODI rankings.
Read more: Babar Azam becomes world’s fastest batsman to score 13 centuries
Fans ran social media trends celebrating the feat of Babar Azam that he achieved in the last ODI match against South Africa.