Tilak Varma rose a whopping 69 spots to No. 3 in the latest International Cricket Council (ICC) rankings for men’s T20I batters on Wednesday, November 20. Tilak became the highest-ranked Indian T20I batter, overtaking captain Suryakumar Yadav in the coveted list. The Mumbai Indians star is only behind Australia’s Travis Head and England’s Phil Salt.
Tilak Varma has broken into the top 10 for the first time in his T20I career. The rise comes after his twin hundreds in India’s dominant T20I series win in South Africa in November.
Tilak Varma won the Player of the Series after India clinched it 3-1. He scored 280 runs at a strike rate of 198, smashing 20 sixes across four matches.
Captain Suryakumar Yadav, who held the No. 1 spot earlier this year, has slipped to No. 4. He made a selfless call and sacrificed his No. 3 spot for Tilak. He managed just 26 runs in four Tests, batting only in three innings.
Meanwhile, Sanju Samson, who also hit two hundreds in the series, climbed 17 spots to 22nd in the latest batting rankings. Samson has been in sensational form in the shortest format of the game, having scored 3 hundreds in his last five innings. Samson seems to be enjoying the backing from captain Suryakumar and coach Gautam Gambhir.
Samson needed five years since making his T20I debut to score his first hundred in the format. In the last 40 days, Samson has scored three, flaunting his renewed hunger and consistency.
