Fargana Hoque Pinky and Nahida Akter reached new high as Bangladesh women’s team’s tremendous performance against India was reflected in the latest ICC rankings.
Bangladesh drew the three-match ODI series 1-1 after the third game ended in a thrilling tie following a never-say-die attitude of the Tigresses. Earlier, they lost the T20 International series by 2-1.
The latest weekly update considered the performances of the last two matches of the series, which was the part of ICC Women’s Championship, an ICC press release revealed.
Fargana became the first Bangladesh woman cricketer to hit a century in ODI format when she made 107 in the third and final ODI and the performance saw him breaking into the top 20 spot for the first time by a Bangladeshi batter.
She is in 19th position now, eclipsing Rumana Ahmed who attained 25th position in February 2017. Fargana's rating points are now 565, which is comfortably the highest by a Bangladesh woman batter.
Left-arm spinner Nahida Akter also moved up 19th position in the bowling rankings after registering three for 37 in the final ODI. The previous best by a Bangladesh bowler was 20th position reached by Salma Khatun in December 2022.
India's Harleen Deol, named ‘player of the match’ in the final ODI after she top-scored for her team with 77 runs, has advanced 32 places to reach 51st position while Jemimah Rodrigues, who scored a match-winning 86 in the second ODI, is up 41 places to 55th. Deepti Sharma is in the top 10 bowlers while Sneh Rana is up three places to 38th.
Meanwhile, England all-rounder Natalie Sciver-Brunt has become the top-ranked batter in the rankings for the first time in her career after smashing a match-winning century in the final ODI of their ICC Women’s Championship series against Australia in Taunton last Tuesday.
Australia captain Meg Lanning (878 rating points) is the only other current women’s player to have held a higher batting rating, with Sciver-Brunt now a recipient of the premier ranking position in ODI cricket for both batters and all-rounders.
Sri Lanka captain Chamari Atapaththu is in second place behind Sciver-Brunt on the latest ODI batter rankings with Mooney dropping to third, while a host of England players also made ground following their 2-1 series triumph in the 50-over component of the Ashes.
Captain Heather Knight rises two places to 12th, Danni Wyatt jumps three spots to 18th, while Ash Gardner was the biggest mover from an Australian perspective as she picked up four rungs to climb to 21st on the batter rankings, three spots on the bowler rankings to claim fifth place and two spots on the all-rounder rankings to go to third.
