The International Cricket Council on Tuesday released the updated MRF Tyres Women’s ODI All-Rounder rankings. The update that comes after a thrilling Super Over contest between West Indies and South Africa yesterday, saw the previous top spot holder Marizanne Kapp moving down 2 places to 3rd, making England’s Natalie Sciver and Australia’s Ellyse Perry move up to occupy the 1st and 2nd spot respectively ahead of their three Ashes ODIs that begins this Thursday.
West Indies all-rounder Hayley Matthews made the highest rise as she jumped up 2 places to the 6th spot, just one behind her captain Stafanie Taylor who dropped down by 1 place, moving India’s Deepti Sharma to the 4th spot. In the two of the four ODIs that have been played as Windies tour South Africa before both the teams depart for New Zealand, Matthews who made 2021 one of her best cricketing years, began the World Cup year on a positive note as she took 4 wickets at an economy of 3.78 in the two ODIs along with scoring 51 from 63 in the first one before it was abandoned due to rain.
Further, Belinda Clark award winner Ashleigh Gardner dropped a place down to 7 while Katherine Brunt and Jess Jonassen shared the 8th spot with 272 points. Injured South African captain Dane Van Niekerk moved down 3 places to be the last one in the top 10.
In addition to this, stand-in South African captain Sune Luus moved up by 2 places to 18th. While West Indies players Chinelle Henry and Karishma Ramharack made a massive 12-spot jump to 65th and 92nd respectively.
With a number of ODIs lined up in the coming weeks- SA v WI, AUS v ENG, and IND v NZ along with the ICC Women’s World Cup just around the corner, we are expected to see the rankings being updated on a regular basis. It would be exciting to see who finishes in the top positions heading into the World Cup in March.
Author of the poetry book ‘The Scent of Rhythm’, I am a passionate writer and a Sports enthusiast who writes on Cricket and plays Badminton.