Abhishek Sharma and Varun Chakaravarthy shine in latest ICC T20I rankings

Indian swashbuckler Abhishek Sharma and mystery spinner Varun Chakaravarthy continued to hold on to their career-best number two position in the latest ICC T20I chart for batters and bowlers respectively.

Hardik Pandya leads the all-rounders' list with 252 points ahead of Nepal's Dipendra Singh Airee (233) and Australian Marcus Stoinis (210). Hard-hitting batter Tilak Varma and India's T20I skipper Suryakumar Yadav occupied the fourth and fifth slot respectively in the rankings released on Wednesday.

Australia's Travis Head leads the chart for batters with 856 rating points with England's Phil Salt placed third with 815 points.

Abhishek has 829 points, Varma has 804 and Suryakumar 739 points.

In the bowling list headed by West Indies' Akeal Hosein (707 points), Chakaravarthy is just one point behind at 706, and ahead of England leg-spinner Adil Rashid (705), Sri Lanka's Wanindu Hasaranga (700) and Australian leggie Adam Zampa (694).

India's Ravi Bishnoi is at sixth place with 674 points, while left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh held the ninth spot with 653 points.

There has been no movement of late as far as the Indian players are concerned as the team has not played any matches since the series against England at home in January-February.

Meanwhile New Zealand's opening pair of Tim Seifert and Finn Allen, and new-ball bowler Jacob Duffy have made huge gains in the player rankings after helping their team to a 2-0 lead against Pakistan in the five-match T20I series.

Seifert and Allen got fine opening stands in both matches, the highlight being a 66-run blitz in the second match in Dunedin, in which seven of the first eight scoring shots of the innings were sixers as New Zealand chased a target of 136 with 11 balls to spare and five wickets in hand.

Sifert, who smashed 44 off 29 in the first match in Christchurch and 45 off 22 in the second, has progressed 20 slots to 13th position while Allen has moved up eight spots to 18th position with contributions of 29 not out off 17 and 38 off 16.

Duffy, who has picked six wickets in the two matches including a career-best haul of four for 14 in the first match that New Zealand won by nine wickets with almost 10 overs to spare, has advanced 23 slots to a career-best 12th position.

Other players to gain in the latest weekly rankings were New Zealand bowlers Ish Sodhi (up two places to 36th), Ben Sears (up 22 places to 67th) and Zakary Foulkes (up 41 places to 90th), and Pakistan's Haris Rauf (up four places to 26th).