The updated ICC Women’s ODI Ranking released Today saw the West Indies duo of Stafanie Taylor and Hayley Matthews crack into the Top 10 of batting and all-rounder category respectively. Captain Taylor, who already occupied the fourth spot in the all-rounder category with a rating of 319 points, breaks into the top 10 batting category as well, rising three places up to the ninth position with 676 rating points.
Considered as one of the best Windies players, Taylor entered the 5000 ODI runs club earlier this month, making herself the fastest woman to the milestone and the first to get it along with 100 plus wickets in the women’s 50 over format. She continued her performance in the World Cup Qualifiers with a spell of 2/15 in 3 overs and an unbeaten 41 off 54 against Ireland which was the only match the team played before the Qualifiers being called off due to the new Covid-19 variant. However, with ranking criteria being followed, the Windies cruised to the 2022 ICC Women’s World Cup.
Hayley Matthews, who earlier occupied the last of the top 10 spots in the all-rounder category, jumped up two places to join England’s Katherine Brunt and Australia’s Jess Jonassen at the eighth position with 272 rating points. Matthews accompanied her captain with the bowl in the World Cup qualifier match, getting a couple of wickets to her tally as well, finishing with 2/20 with 3 maidens in her 10 over spell.
Apart from the West Indians, players from Zimbabwe and Pakistan also saw a significant rise after their performance in the qualifiers. As posted by ICC on their website, Zimbabwe bowlers Sharne Mayers (+24), Francisca Chipare (+14), and Loreen Tshuma (+18) climbed up a good number of places while it was Sadia Iqbal (+14), Fatima Sana (+16) and Anam Amin (+8) rising in the ranking for Pakistan.
The detection of the new Covid-19 variant, Omicron in South Africa forced ICC to cancel the World Cup Qualifiers as countries placed travel restrictions from several African countries which included the qualifier host Zimbabwe as well. This made ICC fill the remaining three spots of the 2022 ICC Women’s World Cup based on the ODI rankings and thus, making West Indies, Pakistan and Bangladesh join the already qualified- Australia, India, England, South Africa, and the host New Zealand in the race to the title.
Source: ICC
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