Bates, Matthews, Tahuhu and Harmanpreet move up in women's T20I rankings

Stunning all-round performance against Ireland at home has lifted Hayley Matthews in all three tables

11-Jul-2023

Lea Tahuhu and Suzie Bates have moved up the T20I bowlers' and batters' tables  •  AFP/Getty Images

Suzie Bates has moved up three spots to No. 5 in the women's T20I batting rankings following scores of 44 and 52 in the first two games in Sri Lanka, while Hayley Matthews and Amelia Kerr have both closed in on Ashleigh Gardner at the top of the allrounders' table.

Chamari Athapaththu batted New Zealand out of the ODI series that preceded the T20Is, totalling 248 runs while being dismissed just once in three innings to give her side a 2-1 win, but New Zealand hit back in the T20Is, winning the first two to pocket the series. Their star performers in the two T20Is were Bates and Kerr with the bat and Lea Tahuhu with the ball, and that reflected in the ICC rankings.

Bates went up to 677 rating points, behind Tahlia McGrath (784), Beth Mooney (777), Smriti Mandhana (728) and team-mate Sophie Devine (683), and another good performance could take her higher before she leaves Sri Lanka.

Kerr has scored 34 and 33 not out in Sri Lanka so far and the two wickets she picked up in the two games took her closer to the top of the allrounders' chart, placing her at No. 3.

The standout all-round performance of the week came from Matthews, the West Indies captain, who scored 135 runs and picked up eight wickets, including a hat-trick in the final game, to script a 3-0 sweep of Ireland at home. She is at No. 2 among allrounders, up two spots to No. 17 among batters, and up three spots to seventh among bowlers.

Tahuhu also moved up within the top ten among bowlers, her four-for in the second T20I against Sri Lanka lifting her two places to sixth.

On to Bangladesh vs India, where Harmanpreet Kaur was the Player of the Match with her 35-ball 54 not out to lead India to a comfortable win in the first T20I. That took her up four places to joint tenth.

At the end of the T20I leg of the Ashes, which got over on July 8 with England winning 2-1 and bouncing right back in the contest after conceding the one-off Test, Mooney, who scored 115 runs, closed in on McGrath at the top of the batters' table, just seven points separating the two.