India’s mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy has stretched his lead at the top of the ICC men’s T20I bowling rankings, and left-hander Tilak Varma has nudged up two places to fourth on the batting table after the opening three matches of the current South Africa series.
Abhishek Sharma, despite returning only 69 runs in those games, stays No.1 among batters thanks to the sizeable cushion he carried into the tour. “The runs haven’t flowed the way I’d like, but the process is sound,” the opener said on the host broadcaster’s mid-innings show. “If I keep doing the basics, the rankings will look after themselves.”
Key numbers
• Chakravarthy: six wickets at 9.83, economy 5.36
• Tilak: 62 from 34 balls in the second T20I, 26* (34) in a small chase next time out
• India lead the five-match contest 2-1
Chakravarthy’s control has been the difference on helpful surfaces in Durban and Centurion. Former India coach Ravi Shastri, speaking on radio, noted, “Varun is reading conditions quickly and bowling the heavy ball when he has to. That’s why the economy stays under six.”
Tilak’s blend of power and patience drew similar praise. Proteas skipper Aiden Markram admitted after match two, “We simply couldn’t pin him down – he picked the gaps and then suddenly took the game away in one over.”
Movers elsewhere
Quinton de Kock’s blistering 90 in the second game hoisted him 14 spots to 53rd, while Markram’s 69 in the low-scoring third T20I lifted him eight places to 29th. Among bowlers, Arshdeep Singh’s man-of-the-match 2-for-13 in Dharamsala pushed the left-armer up four slots to 16th. South Africa’s Marco Jansen (up 14 to 25th) and Lungi Ngidi (up 11 to 44th) also made handy gains.
Test tweaks
The latest Test update offered modest movement for New Zealand after their win over West Indies in Wellington. Devon Conway rose seven places to 34th following scores of 60 and 28, debutant Mitchell Hay entered the list at joint-78th thanks to a composed 61, and seamer Jacob Duffy jumped 15 places to 48th courtesy of figures of 5-for-38 in the second innings.
Why it matters
With a T20 World Cup only six months away, rankings are an early barometer of tournament form and, perhaps more importantly, of selection certainty. Analyst Isa Guha put it neatly on television: “Players don’t chase rankings day-to-day, but they do notice the trend. If you’re moving north in December, coaches tend to back you in April.”
What’s next
The final two T20Is in Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg will decide the series and could trigger further shuffles. Tilak is 21 rating points behind Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan in third; another telling contribution could see the 23-year-old enter the podium places for the first time.
For bowlers, Chakravarthy’s nearest challenger remains England’s Adil Rashid. The gap is still inside touching distance, but as Shastri quipped, “If Varun keeps landing that wrong-’un, Rashid will need a big winter to catch him.”
