India climb to third in ICC women's T20 team rankings

DUBAI: The Indian women's cricket team has overtaken New Zealand to rise to the third spot in the T20 International standings and retained the second position in the ODI chart of the latest ICC rankings released on Friday.

Australia and England retain the top two positions in T20s, their points tally remaining 291 and 280, respectively.

India (270), who made the final of this year's T20 World Cup, are a point ahead of New Zealand (269), the ICC said in a statement.

The biggest improvement in rankings has been registered by Brazil, who are up 11 places to 27, after a gain of 15 rating points, while the biggest ranking fall has been for Malaysia, who are down from 31st to 38th.

Samoa (up two places to 16th), Indonesia (up two places to 20th) and the United States of America (up four places to 31st) are among other teams to have made notable progress.

Three teams have lost their place on the rankings table.

Denmark and Belgium have not played any matches since October 2017 while Qatar have played fewer than the required six during the period.

In the ODI rankings, India (121) and England (119) have lost four points each while clinging on to their second and third positions respectively.

Six-time world champions and winners of both editions of the ICC Women's Championship, Australia's stellar display during the rating period saw them win 20 of 21 ODIs, increasing their tally by eight points to 160.

Their massive lead of 39 points over second-placed India is the largest by any team (men or women) in any form of the game.

It comes on the back of 3-0 series wins over India, Pakistan, New Zealand, England, West Indies, Sri Lanka and an earlier 2-1 victory over England in 2017.

At the fourth spot is South Africa (107), who enjoy a 13-point lead over New Zealand (94), with the West Indies (85), Pakistan (77), Bangladesh (61) and Sri Lanka (47) following in that order.

The latest update expunges results from the 2016-17 season, weights the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons at 50 per cent and the 2019-20 matches at 100 per cent.