Scots make ranking gains after victorious quadrangular tournament
MUSCAT: The likes of Callum Macleod, George Munsey and Mark Watt made significant gains in the latest update of the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s T20I Player Rankings. The Scottish players who led their team to the quadrangular series title in Oman, were rewarded with healthy gains. Players from the Netherlands and Ireland, who also won two games each but lost out to Scotland on net run-rate, too had something to cheer about.
Scotland’s Munsey rose 22 places in the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s T20I Rankings for batsmen to No 36, while Macleod climbed up 12 places to No 55. In the bowling charts, Watt made a four-place rise to 23rd even as Alasdair Evans moved up 13 spots to No 28. Adrian Neill, who impressed on his debut with three wickets against Oman, entered the rankings at No 281.
It was a slightly underwhelming series for Richie Berrington, whose only notable contribution was an unbeaten 47 in the final match against Oman. But he still did reasonably well to jump from No 7 to No 5 on the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s T20I Rankings for allrounders.
For Netherlands, who also won two games in the series and lost out to Scotland on net run-rate by just a whisker, Tobias Visee was most impressive, leading the run-scoring charts with 193 runs from three innings, including two fifties. He climbed up 73 places to 68th as a result.
All-rounder Ryan ten Doeschate made a big jump in all three tables. His scores of 32* and 16* gave him a 64-place leap to No.126 on the batting rankings. He took 1/4 in the only innings he bowled, earning him a 13-spot rise to No 265. On the allrounders’ chart, he climbed 18 places to No 199. A big jump was made by Fred Klaassen in the bowlers charts as he rose 49 spots to 109th after his series haul of six wickets. Close on his heels was Ireland’s Joshua Little, rising 50 places to No 118.
With the bat, Andrew Balbirnie made the most noteworthy gains for the Irish, soaring to No 103 from 148th after scoring 123 runs in the series at a strike-rate of 150.
Kevin O’brien’s rich haul of 130 runs earned him a five-place rise to 71st on the batting rankings and a threespot rise to No 12 on the all-rounder’s chart, even though he didn’t bowl in the series. Paul Stirling climbed two places on the batting rankings to No 26 after his two fifties in the tournament to remain the top-ranked Irish batsman.
For Oman, who lost all of their matches, the positive was the steady contributions of batsmen Khurram Nawaz and Jatinder Singh. Nawaz reentered the batting table at 98th, while Jatinder ended one spot below him.