ICC Rankings Update: Deepti Sharma's Three-Table Surge Is the Story Mandhana's Lost No.1 Ranking Buried

In the second ODI at Vadodara, Harmanpreet Kaur and Deepti Sharma both scored centuries in the same innings. The scorebook belonged to India that evening, but the loudest voice on the feed the next morning was Smriti Mandhana's — she had handed the No.1 ODI batting ranking to Laura Wolvaardt. This ICC update merges two entirely separate assignments into one release: India's home ODI series against Zimbabwe and the Australia-New Zealand T20I series. The first reading error happens right there — treating two formats' two tables as a single story.

The number that should have led every headline sits buried in the third paragraph: Deepti Sharma climbed three separate tables in the same format simultaneously — fourth among ODI all-rounders (+2), eighth among ODI bowlers (+1), and 23rd among ODI batters (+4). Three tables, three different skill sets, one player, one update. I once hand-coded 1,240 deliveries because the eye lies about momentum — and here the eye grabbed the headline while the spreadsheet said something else.

Context first. India won the opening two ODIs in Vadodara to take the series with a game to spare; whether the third ODI was completed before the rankings cut-off is not stated, and that matters because ICC ratings are a weighted points system with a rolling window, not a plain average. New matches enter, old points lose weight.

The quieter lines in the same release: three Zimbabwe batters moved up — Mupachikwa to 39th (+5), Mugeri-Tiripano to 47th (+4) and Biza to 56th (+16), the largest single jump in the entire document. Batters from the losing side accumulating rating ground suggests Vadodara was a batting-friendly surface and that Zimbabwe produced at least one substantial innings. Across the Tasman, Australia's Georgia Wareham sits joint-seventh (+4), Kim Garth joint-tenth (+5), Ashleigh Gardner up nine to 19th in batting; New Zealand's Illing is 17th (+6) and Patel 29th.

Mandhana: this is a form signal, not a class signal. Scores of 32 and 0 in two innings cost her the top spot. In the same update she rose one place to fourth in T20I batting. Anyone reading the ODI drop as a cross-format collapse is merging two datasets that use different match pools. In a weighted window a single zero drags points for months, so her return to No.1 will move slower than her form does — that is the metric's behaviour, not the player's flaw.

Deepti: the scarcest commodity in squad construction. Fourth among all-rounders and 23rd among batters tells you the model rates her bowler-first, with a bat that has now crossed into genuine top-order output. A player who takes wickets and scores at six frees a selection slot. In women's cricket that is the most expensive and least available resource. A top-five all-rounder ranking plus a top-ten bowling ranking is a profile India owns outright; Australia has part of it in Gardner; the rest of the top four does not visibly have the full version.

Harmanpreet's century bought only +2 — that is the metric, not a shortfall. Two places to eighth looks modest, but points are tightly clustered inside the top ten, where small changes reorder several names. There was no room for a century to become a leap. Which also means her position is volatile in both directions.

Australia's bowling depth is the strongest structural signal here. Three Australians inside the T20I top 17 — joint-seventh, joint-tenth, 17th. Their attack does not depend on one individual. India's ODI bowling list shows Deepti eighth and Kranti Gaud 25th (+2) — a steeper drop-off, and no Indian seamer anywhere in the movers. That profile is expensive in seam-friendly conditions and cheap on dry pitches. A home series hides the difference.

Rawal's career-best 21st (+7) is momentum, not establishment. At home, against a lower-rated side, on a one-series sample — that does not yet support a claim of settled international class. Zimbabwe's three climbing batters are the least-written story in the release, because ranking mobility for an emerging side is the actual proof of a fixture's competitiveness.

Now the mainstream case at full strength, because it is uncomfortably strong. Two centuries in one innings against Zimbabwe means India's batting is in good touch — which makes Mandhana's 32 and 0 more worrying, not less, and turns my form-versus-class separation into a comfortable excuse. It is entirely possible her dip is technical — against the new ball, or a line into the body — and the ranking simply noticed late. On Deepti I have to concede the same: points earned at home against a lower-rated opponent do not carry the weight of points earned against Australia. If those three tables slide in her next series, my scarce-profile argument weakens numerically even if it stays true.

My probabilities, on the record: Deepti Sharma holds a top-five ODI all-rounder ranking across the next two ICC updates — 70%. If Mandhana passes 50 twice in her next three to five ODI innings, the No.1 debate reverses inside a single match — 60%. And the thing nobody is watching: Rawal's next away series is the real test of that 21st place; if she falls outside the top 25 there, this was momentum, not achievement. My curiosity has no bedtime, but my conclusions have to earn morning.