Australia leg-spinner Alana King is once again the No.1 ranked bowler in women’s ODIs, the ICC confirmed on Tuesday – only four days after she had slipped behind England’s Sophie Ecclestone.
King’s return to the summit comes on the back of a tidy three-match run in the Caribbean, capped by 5 for 19 in Bridgetown. Across the series she bagged six wickets at 17.66 as Australia strolled to a 3-0 result.
“I never look too closely at the rankings,” King said after the third game. “If I’m helping Australia win matches, that’s the bit that matters.”
Head coach Shelley Nitschke was pleased but hardly surprised. “Alana’s spells in the Caribbean showed real clarity – she’s setting fields, thinking through overs and finishing them off,” Nitschke noted.
The wickets have also nudged King up the all-rounders list – she is seventh now, pushing England’s Nat Sciver-Brunt down a spot.
New Zealand’s series win over South Africa has shuffled the order elsewhere. Maddy Green, top-scorer with 239 runs at an eye-catching average of 119.50, climbs four places to ninth among batters. “I just tried to stay patient and cash in when they missed,” Green said, understated as ever.
Team-mate Amelia Kerr enjoyed a bumper week too. Her unbeaten 179 in Hamilton underpinned the White Ferns’ record chase of 347, and she ends the series joint-14th in the batting rankings, six rungs higher than before. “The chase was good fun; we kept backing ourselves,” she reflected. Kerr’s four wickets, two of them in the decider, helped seal a 66-run victory and the series, 2-1. Analyst and former captain Suzie Bates reckoned the movement was deserved: “Amelia’s economy has tightened up and her batting’s gone to another level.”
Ecclestone, who had held the No.1 bowling slot for just a few days, slips back to second, though England will have a chance to respond when they tour Sri Lanka later in the month.
A glance at the latest tables (full lists on the ICC website) shows modest changes elsewhere, but nothing quite as sharp as King’s bounce. Still, as the Australian leggie pointed out with a smile, “Rankings move every week – the bigger thing is keeping the ball on the strings.”
Not a bad mantra for anyone with an eye on those numbers.
