Australia all-rounder Tahlia McGrath has climbed to the top of the latest ICC Women’s T20I batting rankings. In just her second year as a T20I cricketer, the 27-year-old attained the milestone in just her 16th match, leapfrogging team-mates Meg Lanning and Beth Mooney and Smriti Mandhana to become the 12th women’s batter from Australia to do so.
She has aggregated 485 runs at 121.25 while maintaining an impressive strike-rate of 149.69 from 10 innings in the format till date. Her T20Is score till date read: 42*, 44*, 91*, 70, 14, 78*, 34, 2, 40* and 70*, the last two scores coming in the ongoing series against India Women.
Lanning dropped a spot with New Zealand’s Sophie Devine replacing her in the fourth position. Shafali Verma overtook Suzie Bates to sixth, while Alyssa Healy, Jemimah Rodriques and Ashleigh Gardner round off the top 10, making it for five Australian representations in the list,
Katherine Brunt jumped up a spot in the bowling rankings to sixth, overtaking West Indies’ Hayley Matthews.
England left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone retained the top spot, followed by Sarah Glenn, Deepti Sharma, Renuka Singh and Shabnim Ismail to complete the top five.
Devine remains the top-ranked T20I all-rounder, followed by Deepti, Matthews, Amelia Kerr and Ashleigh Gardner.
Meanwhile, Ellyse Perry has gone past Matthews to reclaim the No. 1 all-rounder position in women’s ODI Rankings. The 32-year-old had first attained the top spot in February 2017 and spent 1787 days there, the fourth-most behind Karen Rolton (2725), Enid Bakewell (2611) and Stafanie Taylor (1947).
The third T20I between India and Australia will be played at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai on Wednesday.
