India drop to 5th spot in T20I rankings

India on Friday dropped three places to be the fifth-ranked team in T20Is.

On the other hand, reigning T20 World Cup champions Pakistan have consolidated their top spot and are now on 286 points while the next four teams are within two points of each other - South Africa (262), England (261), Australia (261) and India (260).

The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Friday unveiled the new expanded T20I team rankings table with 80 teams who will now be able to gauge their progress in a format, recognised by the ICC as the vehicle for the growth of the game.

South Africa and India have swapped positions two and five in the expanded table, whose launch coincides with the annual rankings update in which series results from 2015-16 were removed and outcomes from 2016-17 and 2017-18 were weighted at 50 per cent.

In other significant changes, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka have moved up one place each to seventh and eighth positions, respectively, with the West Indies going down to ninth position.

Nepal have moved from 14th to 11th position while Namibia have grabbed 20th position.

Teams like Austria, Botswana, Luxembourg and Mozambique are among the sides figuring in the men's T20I ranking table that features all members meeting the criteria of having played six matches against other ICC members since May 2016.

The qualification process for the men's T20 World Cup which is underway includes 58 T20I matches across five regional finals is likely to mean significant movements on the rankings over the coming months.

The first final was held in Papua New Guinea last month whilst the Africa final in Uganda (May 19-24 ), the Europe final in Guernsey (June 15-19), the Asia final in Singapore (July 22-28) and the Americas final in the US (August 19-25) are still to come.

Six of these teams will join hosts UAE, Hong Kong, Ireland, Netherlands, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Scotland and Zimbabwe in the global qualifier in what will be another chance to improve their standings on the table as they try to qualify for the T20 World Cup 2020 in Australia.

--IANS

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