Deepti Sharma climbs to No. 6 in T20I bowling rankings


Deepti Sharma moved up two spots to No. 6 on the ICC's list of Women's T20I bowlers with eight wickets in three games at the Women's T20 Asia Cup. Her teammate N Shree Charani leads the table with seven wickets in three games. The performance of the two spinners, as well as newbie Prema Rawat, made India the first team to enter the semi-finals of the tournament. Deepti was the top-ranked bowler in the world in December last year, but has since been upstaged by Shree Charani. England's Sophie Ecclestone, Charlie Dean and Lauren Bell and South Africa's Nonkululeko Mlaba are slotted between Shree Charani and Deepti, but the gap between the No. 1 and the No. 6 is only 70 points. Deepti also overtook Thailand's Thipatcha Putthawong to become the most successful Women's T20I wicket-taker. She got to the peak after returning 3 for 0 in 1.1 overs against Thailand in the tournament opener for either side. Putthawong, meanwhile, has moved up four slots to 47th after picking up five wickets in three games. Vice-captain Smriti Mandhana was the highest-ranked India batter at the fifth spot. She now has 18 hundreds in internationals after scoring a century against Hong Kong. It was also an innings where she overtook Mithali Raj to be the leading run-getter in women's internationals. Shafali Verma (seventh) and Harmanpreet Kaur (10th) are the other Indian batters in the top ten of the women's T20I rankings. The Pakistani left-arm spinner Nashra Sandhu returned a Pakistan record of 6 for 7 against Hong Kong on Monday in the Asia Cup. However, in the most recent update, she dropped one spot to No. 8. After England's series victory over Ireland, Dean moved up a lot in the rankings for Women's One-Day Internationals. Among allrounders, Dean moved up one place to ninth, and she also gained two spots to joint 11th among bowlers after picking up three wickets in three games with an economy rate of 4.12. Amy Hunter rose from 20th to 11th among batters, the third-highest run-getter among the two teams with 165 runs, behind Sophia Dunkley (212 runs) and Maia Bouchier (188 runs).