Bangladesh women’s cricket team skipper Salma Khatun achieved double success on Tuesday when she touched the summit in the Twenty20 bowling ranking and earned a place in the women’s team of the just-concluded ICC World Twenty20 tournament.
Salma moved up two places to number one position in the bowlers’ table for the first time in her career to make the tournament memorable for her.
Salma picked up eight wickets in the tournament, the fourth highest among the bowlers, at an average of 8.75 and an economy of 3.58 runs per over.
The off-spinner, who led Bangladesh to two wins against Sri Lanka and Ireland for a ninth place finish, moved ahead of Sri Lanka’s Udeshika Prabhodhani into the top place.
Salma is now on best-ever 650 ratings points, just one ahead of the Sri Lankan bowler, and the performance also played a part in getting her a place in the ICC Women’s team of the tournament.
Earlier, Salma joined a group of illustrious cricket in the best XI of the Twenty20, selected by a group of experts including ICC elite match referee David Boon, former Pakistani cricketer Wasim Akram and ex-England cricketer Nasir Hossain.
Salma is the second Bangladeshi cricketer to top any select group of ICC rankings after Sakib al Hasan, who was at the top of Test and ODI all-rounder ranking. Sakib also held the top raking in the ODI bowlers’ list briefly.
Salma also currently holds the third position in the women’s Twenty20 International all-rounder rankings.
-With New Age input
