Babar Azam leapfrogs Sachin Tendulkar in elite list

Pakistan skipper Babar Azam has gone past former India cricketer Sachin Tendulkar in the all-time ODI batters list. The reason for his jump in the rankings is his recent performance in the three-match ODI series against Australia at home. In that series, Azam hit two back-to-back hundreds in the second and third ODI and helped the team win the series by 2-1. Talking about the ODI rankings, the right-hander has jumped to 891 rating points.

This means that the Pakistan skipper has gone past Tendulkar in all-time rankings who has 887 rating points. The Lahore-born player is on the 15th spot in the table while the Mumbai-born has slipped to 16th. Former West Indies skipper Viv Richards is topping the list even after retiring from the game in 1991. Richards has 935 rating points to his name.

Another cricketer from Pakistan, Zaheer Abbas, who played for his country from 1969 to 1985, is in the second spot with 931 points. Former India head coach Greg Chappell is at the third spot with 921 points. Former England opening batter David Gower is in the fourth spot with 919 points and the late Dean Jones, who died due to a heart attack in 2020, is at the fifth spot with 918. 

Former India skipper Virat Kohli, who hasn’t scored an international hundred since 2019, is at the sixth spot with 911 points. Notably, Kohli is the only Indian in the top 10 in the list. Javed Miandad, who was the first player to play six ODI World Cups before Tendulkar, is at the seventh spot with 910. Former West Indies and South Africa skippers, Brian Lara and AB de Villiers are at eighth and ninth spots with 908 and 902 points respectively. Meanwhile, Babar Azam is expected to jump up in the rankings in future as his team will play against the Netherlands and the West Indies in the near future.