Bengaluru, July 9: Australia opener Aaron Finch is the new top name in the ICC T20I players rankings while Pakistan's Fakhar Zaman and India's KL Rahul too leapfrogged to No 2 and No 3 positions.
The ranking was released after the T20I series between India and England which the former won 2-1 thanks to centuries by KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma.
Finch, the new captain of the Australian T20I side, had a remarkable run during the tri-series in Zimbabwe, scoring 68, 172 - a world record in the format, 16, 3 and 47.
BREAKING: @AaronFinch5 takes over as the No.1 T20I batsman on the @MRFWorldwide rankings after a scintillating tri-series.
— ICC (@ICC) July 9, 2018
And there's a new No.2 and 3 as well ⬇️https://t.co/VNHlc0zhBg pic.twitter.com/9BRFsvXC9l
Coming as these runs did on the back of the 84 he scored in the one-off T20I against England, Finch rose three spots from No 4 to becoming the new No 1 batsman.
Zaman, who Finch had called "a real thorn in our side" before the final, slammed a career-best 91 in just 46 balls in the final, his blitz helping Pakistan cross Australia's 183/8 with four balls in hand.
Australia's @AaronFinch5 is the first player ever to hit 900 points in the @MRFWorldwide ICC T20I Rankings! 🙌
— ICC (@ICC) July 9, 2018
Meanwhile, Pakistan's @FakharZamanLive is up 4️⃣4️⃣ places to second! 💪
➡️ https://t.co/ltPIsgyj6S pic.twitter.com/H8B35g8jHg
Zaman's performance in the tournament was spectacular and his rise in the rankings equally so. His sequence in Zimbabwe read 61, 6, 47, 73 (his career-best score before the final) and 91. No wonder he moved up 44 spots on the table to reach No 2 with 842 points, also the best in his short international career so far.
Interestingly, earlier in the tournament, Finch had also reached a career-high 900 points, and the new No 3 on the table, KL Rahul, did the same in the first match of three-T20I series in England, getting to 854 points.
That was after he had led India to victory in the first game of the series with an unbeaten 101. He dipped from there, but 6 and 19 in the next two games ensured he was up nine spots since the last update at 812 points.