DUBAI, July 4: Indian women’s team captain Harmanpreet Kaur and her deputy Smriti Mandhana dropped a place each to sixth and seventh respectively in the latest ICC rankings for batters in ODIs released here on Tuesday. Swashbuckling batter Harmanpreet has 716 rating points while Mandhana has 714. Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu topped the chart with 758 points, the first player from the island nation to achieve the feat.
In bowling, left-arm spinner Rajeshwari Gayakwad (617 rating points) and senior off-spinning all-rounder Deepti Sharma are placed eighth and tenth respectively in the list headed by England’s Sophie Ecclestone, who has accumulated 751 points. As far as the all-rounders are concerned, India’s Deepti is placed sixth with 322 points.
In T20Is, Mandhana is static on third place with 722 points, while Deepti moved a place up to fourth in bowling with 729 points, leaving Renuka Singh on ninth place with exactly 700 points. Deepti, however, continued to hold on to the third place in the all-rounder’s list with 393 points. Meanwhile, Athapaththu has become the first player from her country to top the women’s ODI player rankings after starring in a 2-1 series win over New Zealand in the ICC Women’s Championship.
The left-handed opener thus emulated Sanath Jayasuriya, who is the only Sri Lanka player to top the ODI batting rankings for men, for 181 days between September 2002 and May 2003. Athapaththu’s two centuries in three matches have lifted her six places, overtaking the likes of Harmanpreet, Meg Lanning and Laura Wolvaardt and displacing Australia’s Beth Mooney, who was at the top of the batting charts since May 10.
Athapaththu won player of the match awards for her 108 not out off 83 balls in the first match and 140 not out off 80 in the final match. She was also named player of the series, making a rapid rise from seventh position, her previous career-best ranking. Only two other Sri Lanka players have reached number one position in the women’s rankings, both in the year 2014 – left-arm seam bowler Udeshika Prabodhani (T20I bowling) and Shashikala Siriwardene (T20I all-rounders).
Athapaththu, who has scored all her country’s top 10 individual scores in women’s ODIs, is currently at the highest-ever points tally by a Sri Lanka woman in ODIs with 758 rating points. The next best is just 587 by Dedunu Silva, who also has the next highest-ranking, reaching 11th position in April 2010.
Meanwhile, New Zealand captain Sophie Devine has shot up six places to 13th after smashing a match-winning 137 in the second ODI of the series in Galle. (PTI)
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