Former cricketer Basit Ali expressed serious concerns on the latest ICC ODI rankings, questioning on what basis Pakistan’s white-ball skipper Babar Azam and India’s Shubman Gill are the top-ranked batters.
Azam, 29, is the top-ranked ODI batter with 824 rating points and he is followed by Rohit Sharma, who has 765 rating points. The third and fourth on the rankings list are Gill and Virat Kohli with 763 and 746 rating points respectively.
Basit disagreed with the rankings, asking who gives these rankings. He further stated that Azam will be happy with his number one and the ICC does not want him to perform.
"When I saw the ICC ranking (ODI batters), Babar Azam was at the top, Rohit Sharma was number two, Shubman Gill was number three, and then there was Virat Kohli at number four. I did not find it necessary to read the remaining names because I couldn't see Travis Head and Rachin Ravindra,” Basit said.
“I think the ICC wants that Babar doesn't perform. He would be happy with being the number one-ranked batter in ODIs. Who gives these rankings? On what basis are Babar Azam and Shubman Gill there.”
Basit then talked about the latest ODI tournament which was the 2023 World Cup and said that players like Travis Head, Rachin Ravindra were outstanding performers but they are not placed higher in the rankings.
"Babar's last ODI was at the last year's World Cup. We saw the likes of Rachin Ravindra, Quinton de Kock, Travis Head, and Virat Kohli at the World Cup. They scored three to four hundreds in the tournament,” Ali added.
“For Pakistan, Mohammad Rizwan and Fakhar Zaman scored a century each. Babar Azam did not score a single hundred. His last hundred came against Nepal in the Asia Cup. What kind of ranking do they give?
"The people at ICC are Babar Azam's enemies. If you asked Babar who is the current number one, he would also pick Travis Head or Virat Kohli. Even he wouldn't say that he is the number one," he concluded.
- Babar Azam
