India opener Shafali Verma and new-ball seamer Renuka Singh have nudged closer to the ICC T20I top five, both moving to sixth in the latest batting and bowling rankings.
Shafali’s surge comes on the back of three unbeaten half-centuries – 69, 79 and 79 – in the ongoing home series against Sri Lanka. The 21-year-old has piled up 236 runs, almost double Smriti Mandhana’s 120, the next best in the contest. Her clean striking in the powerplay has been the obvious headline, yet the more noticeable shift is the calmer tempo once the field spreads. A strike rate still hovering above 140 shows she has managed to keep the boundary count high without the early-career rushes of blood that occasionally cut promising innings short.
Renuka’s jump – eight spots to a share of sixth with South Africa’s Nonkululeko Mlaba – owes much to a decisive 4 for 21 in the third match. Most of her wickets have come with the new ball, the outswinger accounting for two top-order players in that spell. She now sits alongside Deepti Sharma, Vaishnavi Sharma and Shree Charani on four wickets for the series, though India’s lead seamer has bowled six overs fewer than her team-mates.
India hold a 4-0 lead heading into Tuesday’s final match in Thiruvananthapuram. Another victory would seal the side’s third 5-0 whitewash in women’s T20Is, following tours of the West Indies in 2019 and Bangladesh last year. Sri Lanka, for their part, have never lost a series by such a margin.
The ICC update also confirmed Deepti Sharma’s stay at No.1 in the bowling table, underlining the broader depth in India’s attack. Should Shafali and Renuka crack the top five next week, India would have representatives in the elite tier across both disciplines – a neat marker of how quickly the side has pushed on since last year’s T20 World Cup.
