ICC’s Credibility Under Question as Young Indian Becomes No.1 Bowler After 34 T20I Wickets

Indian men’s cricket team leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi is the new T20I number 1 ranked bowler according to the latest rankings provided by the International Cricket Council (ICC). Bishnoi picked 9 wickets with an average of 18.22 and an economy rate of 8.20 runs per over in the recently concluded India versus Australia T20I series, which India won 4-1.

T20I Bowling Ranking (06 December 2023)

It comes as a surprise that Bishnoi has jumped leaps and bounds as he only has 34 wickets in his T20I career. He overtook the likes of Rashid Khan and Wanindu Hasaranga.

Just to be clear, Rashid Khan has taken 130 wickets in 82 matches with a T20I career average of 14.80 and an economy of 6.16. Meanwhile, Wanindu Hasaranga has taken 91 wickets throughout his T20I career of 58 matches with a bowling average of 15.80 and an economy of 6.89. Both of these players have a better record throughout their careers than Bishnoi’s recent outing against Australia which makes the recent ranking update all the more bizarre.

What’s even more astounding is that before the start of the T20I series with Australia, Bishnoi was ranked 19th in the world with 603 points, and after conceding 54 runs for one wicket in the 1st T20I on 23rd November 2023, his ranking somehow improved to 18th with 614 points.

T20I Bowlers Ranking (22nd November 2023)

T20I Bowling Ranking (24th November 2023)

In the latest rankings provided by the ICC for the T20I format, Ravi Bishnoi has been awarded the crown of the best bowler in T20I format. Overtaking Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan, Srilanka’s Wanindu Hasaranga and England’s Adil Rashid, who have taken far more wickets during the past few years at much better averages while conceding fewer runs.

Questions were already being asked on unexplained ranking boosts for Suryakumar Yadav in T20Is, Shubman Gill in ODIs and Maheesh Theekshana and Ishan Kishan’s sudden jump in T20Is.

Bishnoi represented India in the 2020 U-19 World Cup in South Africa, where he bowled against the likes of Rohail Nazir, Haider Ali, Mohammad Hurraira and Qasim Akram.

Cricket fans have started to question whether the ICC has a different formula to calculate the rankings when it comes to certain players.

Follow ProPakistani on Google News & scroll through your favourite content faster!

Support independent journalism

If you want to join us in our mission to share independent, global journalism to the world, we’d love to have you on our side. If you can, please support us on a monthly basis. It takes less than a minute to set up, and you can rest assured that you’re making a big impact every single month in support of open, independent journalism. Thank you.

• Monthly
• One-time

• Rs.500 per month
• Rs. 1500 per month
• Rs. 2500 per month

• Rs. 1000
• Rs. 2000
• Rs. 5000

Continue