Babar, Rizwan & Shaheen Drop in ICC Test Rankings

Pakistan’s premier trio of Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, and Shaheen Afridi all suffered a dip as the ICC announced the latest Test cricket rankings.

After another poor outing with the bat against England in the first test which cost him a place in the national side, Babar dropped to 15th with 684 points while Rizwan fell all the way to 19th with 678 points and Shaheen, meanwhile, slipped out of the top 10 in the bowler’s rankings and now sits 14th with 681 points.

Hasan Ali and Naseem Shah also dropped to 34th and 36th, respectively with Aamir Jamal and Abrar Ahmed occupying  49th and 51st place in the standings.

On the other side of the picture Agha Salman and captain Shan Masood made notable progress, with Salman climbing 11 places to move to 22nd and Masood making a significant 12-place leap to reach 51st in the batter rankings.

Abdullah Shafique also moved up two places to 39th.

Pakistan’s loss was England’s gain with Joe Root solidifying his spot at the top of the batter rankings after a career-best double-century (262 runs) during England’s dominant win over Pakistan in Multan.

He leads the ICC test batters rankings from his countryman Harry Brook after this triple-century in the same test with New Zealand’s Kane Williamson in third.