The Top Stars: Which players moved the most in the rankings between the two T20 World Cups?

By Rohit Sankar

A lot has changed since the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022. For starters, there’s a dazzling new cricket stadium in New York that will host multiple matches at this year’s edition of the tournament, including the clash between India and Pakistan on June 9.

There’s also a remarkable reversal of fortunes for some teams, most notably the co-hosts West Indies. After a first-round exit in 2022 with losses to Ireland and Scotland, West Indies have turned things around, beating defending champions England, India, and South Africa in bilateral series in 2023. They are in red-hot form too for the upcoming tournament, having thrashed South Africa 3-0 in a bilateral series this week.

England themselves have gone up and down a sine curve. Since lifting the trophy in Australia in 2022, the Jos Buttler-led side has won five and lost eight T20Is.

T20 World Cup stars make rankings rise on eve of tournament

West Indies have moved up to fourth in the latest ICC Men’s T20I Team Rankings update, with India at the top of that table and England, despite their recent struggles, positioned at No.3.

Some of the players responsible for their team's climb in the standings have also seen their positions soar in the ICC Men’s T20I Player Rankings table.

We take a look into which players have had the wildest upsurge in their individual rankings across categories between the two T20 World Cups as they head to the 2024 mega event.

Note: Only players who are in the top 50 in the respective categories in 2024 and named in the squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup are considered.

West Indies get major boost in rankings ahead of the T20 World Cup

Travis Head, Yashasvi Jaiswal make a huge impression in the batting rankings

The biggest talent to enter the fray in T20Is, if not all of international cricket, between the two T20 World Cups is India’s dynamic opening batter Yashasvi Jaiswal. Since making his debut in August 2023, Jaiswal has set the stage on fire in T20Is.

With 502 runs in 17 T20Is, striking at a rate of 161.93, Jaiswal has become the top-ranked Indian batter in the format after Suryakumar Yadav. While he hadn’t even made his debut at the end of the T20 World Cup in 2022, Jaiswal is currently sixth in the batting rankings in men’s T20Is.

A strikingly similar story has also emerged from Down Under, where Travis Head’s stocks have shot through the roof. The left-handed opener went up from a ranking of 587 in November 2022 to 16th in 2024. After a stunning IPL 2024 for Sunrisers Hyderabad, Head was earmarked for bigger glory by his compatriot and Aussie legend, Ricky Ponting.

“My prediction for the leading run scorer will be Travis Head,” Ponting told The ICC Review.

“I just think everything he's done, whether it be red ball or white ball in the last couple of years, has been of the highest quality. I think he's playing fearless cricket at the moment.”

England opener Phil Salt has also had a massive rise in the format, going up to No.2 in the batter rankings. After playing just two games in the 2022 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, Salt has made 407 runs in just nine T20Is, making two hundreds and averaging over 50 while also striking at a rate of 168.18.

West Indies’ Johnson Charles and Australia’s Tim David are others to move up the batting rankings significantly.

Notably, Salt is the only new player in the top five in 2024 when compared to 2022. Suryakumar Yadav (top of the rankings then and now), Mohammad Rizwan, Babar Azam and Aiden Markram, who currently occupy four of the top five spots, were also in the same bracket in November 2022 in the immediate aftermath of the T20 World Cup.

Two other notable inclusions in the top 50 of the batting rankings in 2024 are Rinku Singh, who is a reserve in India's T20 World Cup squad, and Netherlands’ Michael Levitt.

Rinku had a stirring start to his T20I career, averaging 89 with a strike-rate of 176.23, since making his debut in August 2023 and is currently 32nd in the batting rankings.

Levitt, placed 38th, has already made an impression on the T20 World Cup, starring with a half-century in Netherlands’ win over Sri Lanka in the warm-up game. At 20 years, Levitt is a sensational talent who has had a great start to his international career. In just his second T20I, Levitt smashed the highest score by a Netherlands player in T20Is (135 off 62 v Namibia). In eight T20I innings, he has 349 runs and will look to make a big impression in the upcoming mega tournament.

Two left-arm spinners and a tale of redemption in the bowling rankings

Among the bowlers, the most notable improvers has been from West Indies spinner Gudakesh Motie and India’s Kuldeep Yadav, both going up by a significant margin to enter the top 30 of the bowling rankings.

In bilaterals against England and South Africa, Motie was outstanding for West Indies, taking 13 wickets in seven games, conceding runs at an economy rate of 6.88. He saw a massive jump of 84 places in the latest rankings update ahead of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024.

Kuldeep, on the other hand, had fallen out of favour with the selectors for the last T20 World Cup, but has since made a roaring comeback, taking 15 wickets in his last 10 games, averaging 14.33 and conceding runs at a rate of just 6.35.

Romario Shepherd, Nathan Ellis and Imad Wasim, who reversed his retirement decision earlier this year and produced some stellar performances, are the others who have seen massive changes to their bowling rankings.

There were also three significant big movements into the top 10 of the bowling rankings from November 2022 to 2024 — Ravi Bishnoi (74th to 4th), Axar Patel (39th to 3rd) and Reece Topley (23rd to 9th).

While Bishnoi missed out on T20 World Cup selection, Axar and Topley will travel to the Caribbean and the USA.

The tough road up for all-rounders in the rankings

The all-rounders’ rankings haven’t had too many wild changes in the top 10 in these two years. Wanindu Hasaranga has gone up from 7th in November 2022 to the top of the all-rounders table in 2024, while the likes of Shakib Al Hasan, Sikandar Raza and Mohammad Nabi have remained in the top five.

But outside the top 10, there have been some massive changes, most notably for West Indies’ Roston Chase, who has seen his rank go up by 233 places. Afghanistan’s young all-rounder Azmatullah Omarzai has risen up into the top 50 with impressive performances while Angelo Mathews, who made a stunning comeback into the T20I team earlier this year, has gone up 157 places to 38th.

Imad Wasim, though, had the most significant change in the top 15, rising 110 places since his comeback from retirement earlier this year. The Pakistan all-rounder has 15 wickets in 14 T20Is, bowling at an economy rate of 6.14, since 2023 after missing the squad for the 2022 T20 World Cup. Wasim also made his only half-century in the format last year.