ICC ODI Rankings | Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma end year as No.1 and No.2; Shai Hope breaks into Top 10
India’s captain Virat Kohli and vice captain Rohit Sharma maintained their place as the No.1 and 2 ODI batsman respectively while West Indies batter Shai Hope broke into the top 10. Meanwhile, Shimron Hetmyer gained 6 places and Nicholas Pooran jumped 33 places after a remarkable India tour.
As India concluded 2019 with a well-fought series against West Indies, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma held on to the top two spots in the latest ICC ODI batsmen’s rankings. Babar Azam, Faf du Plessis and Ross Taylor take up the other three positions in the Top 5.
While skipper Kohli finished the year with 887 points, his second in command, Rohit, followed him up with 873 points. Rohit had a memorable year with the bat as he amassed a whopping 2442 runs across formats as he surpassed Sri Lankan great Sanath Jayasuriya to pile most runs by an opener in a calendar year, breaking the Sri Lankan's 22-year-old record in the process.
On the other hand, Windies owner Shai Hope broke into the top 10 of batsmen's rankings following the tremendous run he had in 2019 where he piled up 1345 runs. The young keeper-batsman jumped 5 places to finish ninth in the list after an impressive series against India where he scored 222 runs in just 3 matches, including an unbeaten ton in the series opener in Chennai.
His teammate Shimron Hetmyer gained six places to finish at the 19th spot, while Nicolas Pooran vaulted 33 places to grab the 30th spot in the list after impressive performances on the India tour. It was these three youngsters who shouldered the Windies batting lineup with some help from skipper Kieron Pollard.