Daily Times

LAHORE: Pakistan’s triumph in the recently concluded ICC Champions Trophy has pushed them to sixth in the ICC ODI Team Rankings, and closer to direct qualification for the 2019 World Cup in England. Pakistan, who began the tournament placed eighth, gained four points to move past Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, who are now ranked seventh and eighth respectively. Hosts England and the seven highest ranked teams at the cut-off date of September 30, 2017, receive direct qualification for the next World Cup. “We’ve got two years until the 2019 World Cup,” Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur said after beating India in the Champions Trophy final. “We’ve got the monkey off our back in terms of qualifying. We now have two years to identify a squad we want to take forward and give them enough game time.”

In the ODI Bowlers Rankings, Pakistan’s Hasan Ali, who took 13 wickets in five games to be named Player of the Champions Trophy, broke into the top 10, leapfrogging 12 of his peers to claim the seventh spot. Batsman Babar Azam moved up three positions to reach a career-high fifth spot in the batting rankings. Babar scored 133 runs in five Champions Trophy games, without a fifty. Fakhar Zaman, who scored two fifties and a hundred in the tournament, was among the top 100 despite playing just four ODIs. The top four spots in both the batting and bowling rankings – with Virat Kohli and Josh Hazlewood in the lead – remained unchanged.

Published in Daily Times, June 20th, 2017.