Australia dethrone Pakistan as No.1 T20I side in ICC rankings

Pakistan have been dethroned as the top-ranked Twenty20I side for the first time since January 2018 in the latest International Cricket Council (ICC) T20I rankings for teams released on Friday.

In the updated ICC Men's T20I team rankings which has seen plenty of changes, Australia have grabbed the top spot for the first time since the rankings in this format was introduced in 2011 after dethroning Pakistan. 

Australia are standing at the numero-uno spot with a total of 278 points, the ICC official website reported.

Pakistan, who had overtaken New Zealand to reach top position in January 2018 and then spent 27 months there, have now dropped to the fourth place with 260 points.

Pakistan have yielded the top spot largely because of their below-par performances in the shortest format of the game in the last few months. Also, the team's results in th 2016-17 season was not taken into consideration in the latest update.

Australia, on the other hand, have surged to the No.1 spor because of their impressive performances in the recent times. They clinched seven wins in nine matches against Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Africa which has also left them tipped as one of the favourites for the ICC T20 World Cup later this year.

England have climbed up to take the second spot  with 268 points while India are up one place to third, just two points behind.

Afghanistan have further moved down from seventh to 10th. Bulgaria, on the other hand, are the biggest gainers as they moved up 12 places to take the 51st position in the 84-country list of teams that played the requisite six matches in the past three years.

 Last year, there were 80 ranked teams in the global T20I rankings. However, seven new teams have joined the table (Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Romania and Turkey), while three countries (France, Isle of Man and Israel) have lost their rankings after having played insufficient number of matches.