ICC Women’s ODI rankings: Mandhana drops two slots, Mithali retains ninth spot

Dubai [UAE], March 2 (ANI): England opener Tammy Beaumont on Tuesday made a jump of five places to grab the top position among batters in the ICC women’s ODI rankings after an excellent display in the three-match series against New Zealand which her team won 2-1.
India opening batter Smriti Mandhana has dropped down two slots in the rankings and as a result, she is now at the sixth spot. Mithali Raj has maintained her ninth spot in the ODI rankings.
In bowling rankings, Jhulan Goswami (fifth), Poonam Yadav (sixth), Shikha Pandey (seventh), and Deepti Sharma (tenth) have all held on to their respective spots.
The 29-year-old Beaumont has overtaken the likes of West Indian Stafanie Taylor and New Zealand’s Amy Satterthwaite to top the list and now leads Australia captain Meg Lanning by 16 points.
This is for the first time in her 12-year ODI career that Beaumont is number one, her previous best being the fourth position in July 2019. She has gained a whopping 49 points after topping the series with 231 runs, which comprised knocks of 71, 72 not out and 88 not out.
Natalie Sciver has moved into the top 10 after scoring 96 runs in the series while captain Heather Knight has progressed three slots to reach 13th position after aggregating 135 runs. Amy Jones is another England batter to move up the rankings, from 27th to joint-25th position.
Sciver, who bowls medium pace, has progressed 12 places to a career-best 22nd in the list of bowlers after finishing with five wickets in the series. Her effort with both bat and ball also resulted in her moving up three places to fifth position in the list of all-rounders led by Ellyse Perry of Australia.
Other England bowlers to gain in the new weekly system of updating, which will see women player rankings updated each Tuesday and those for men each Wednesday, include Katherine Brunt (up to two places to ninth), Sophie Ecclestone (up to one place to 14th), and Sarah Glenn (up to three places to 44th).
For New Zealand, who host the ICC Women’s World Cup one year from now, all-rounder Amelia Kerr’s match-winning effort of 72 not out and four for 42 in the final ODI has lifted her 10 places to 47th position among batters and up to two places to 11th among bowlers. She is now 13th on the list of all-rounders.
Brooke Halliday, who smashed half-centuries both times she batted in her debut series, has entered the rankings in 59th position while medium-pacer Hannah Rowe has gained three slots to reach 43rd position among bowlers. (ANI)