WEST INDIES captain Jason Holder has shot up in the MRF Tyres ICC Player Rankings for ODI Bowlers and also moved up in the lists for batsmen and all-rounders after a fine show in a One-Day International tri-series in Zimbabwe that Sri Lanka won on Sunday. Holder’s nine wickets in the tournament were not enough to help the World Twenty20 champions reach the final as Zimbabwe edged them out in a rain-reduced last league match, but the haul was enough to propel him nine places up to 15th in the rankings for bowlers.
Holder, who held a career-high ranking of 14th among bowlers in March last year, has also gained seven slots to reach a career-best 80th position in the MRF Tyres ICC Player Rankings for ODI Batsmen and now enjoys a career-best ranking of sixth among all-rounders.
Holder, who was the leading wicket-taker for the West Indies with 13 wickets in the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2010 in New Zealand, has made a steady rise as he was ranked 53rd among bowlers and 182nd among batsmen at the beginning of 2015.
West Indies opener Evin Lewis, who topped the run-aggregate in the tri-series with 202 runs, has made big gains, moving up 177 slots to 108. Others to gain in the batting rankings include Zimbabwe’s Sikandar Raza (up 13 places to reach 49th) and Sri Lanka’s Dhananjaya De Silva (up 48 places to reach 98th).
The list for bowlers saw Sri Lanka’s SurangaLakmal and NuwanKulasekara make significant movement. Lakmal has moved up 15 slots to reach 20th place while Kulasekara has moved up 23 slots to take 45th position.
The West Indies missed a chance to overtake Pakistan in the MRF Tyres ICC ODI Team Rankings as it slipped one point to 87 points whereas it could have gone up to 94 points. Pakistan remains in eighth position with 89 points.
These points are important because host England and the seven highest-ranked sides on the ICC ODI team rankings as on 30 September 2017 will qualify directly for the World Cup while the bottom four sides will compete with six other sides from the ICC World Cricket League in the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018.