The stylish Indian opener Rohit Sharma has moved up four places to attain his career-best ranking to be on the No 5 spot in the MRF Tyres ICC ODI Player Ranking courtesy some brilliant batting performances in the recently concluded ODI series against Australia. India won the home series 4-1.
The cricketer from Mumbai became the highest run-getter in the series scoring 296 runs in five matches’ courtesy two half-centuries and a brilliant knock of 125 runs in the last match which helped the Indian side to chase down a total of 243 runs with ease in Nagpur. Sharma’s knock contributed significantly for the men in blue to reach the top spot of the MRF Tyres ICC ODI Team Ranking after they slipped down to NO 2 position after losing the penultimate match of the series.
Sharma attains his career-best rating points with 790 points to be the second Indian batsman to be in the top five of the batsmen list along with his skipper Virat Kohli who is currently the No. 1 ODI batsman in the World. Sharma rose to his career-best third spot in February 2016.
The other opening batsman from the India-Australia series also saw notable improvement in the ranking list. Rahane, who got the opportunity to open the batting after Shikhar Dhawan opted out to be with his ailing wife, used it to great perfection. He moved up four places to be in the 24th position in the batting list.
The opening duo of Australia, Aaron Finch, and David Warner also saw improvement in the list. David Warner closed in on a pre-series gap of 26 points to just 12 points from Kohli’s 877 points taking his points tally to 865 points. Finch also moved up nine places to be at the 17th slot.
Other notable improvements were Kedhar Jadhav from India who jumped up eight places to reach his career-best 36th spot. Marcus Stoinis of Australia moved up 74 places to be at the 54th spot whereas England’s pair of Jason Roy and Johnny Bairstow was tied at 30th and 40th spot respectively. West Indies captain Jason Holder moved up 11th places to be at the 73rd spot while Evin Lewis jumped 31 spots to be at 78th position.