Afghanistan Star Claims Top ODI Ranking After Successful Champions Trophy 2025

Afghanistan keeps on producing classical all-rounders in the white-ball formats of the game, as they went through another successful year in the ninth edition of the Champions Trophy 2025, where they finished in the group-stage but showed a lot of promise in all the three departments of the game.

Afghanistan’s all-rounder, who will turn 25 later this month, is now moving north in the ICC rankings list. After his successful campaign in the eight-team tournament, which included a maiden five-wicket haul against England and a fine half-century against Australia, Azmatullah Omarzai has become the world’s top-ranked all-rounder.

Afghanistan’s Azmatullah Omarzai overtakes Mohammad Nabi among all-rounders

Omarzai has dethroned his teammate, Mohammad Nabi, who drops to second on the list. The right-armer rose two spots and claimed a career-high rating point of 296 for Afghanistan.

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India’s Axar Patel got a consistent promotion at number five in the batting line-up, as he contributed with a few fine knocks and has now moved up 17 spots to 13th and registered a career-high 194 rating points.

Afghanistan’s Omarzai was also one of the key climbers in the latest ODI batter ranking, thanks to his 126 runs in the Champions Trophy as he moves up 12 spots to 24th among the batters in the 50-over format with a 598 rating.

Afghanistan's campaign in the Champions Trophy allowed several players to blossom in their careers, as Ibrahim Zadran also made a bold climb up the batting ranking. He smashed 177 runs against England at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore and moved up to 13 spots into the 10th position with 676 points.

Australia’s stand-in captain, Steve Smith, who announced his ODI retirement from the game after they failed to qualify for the final of the event, has also collected good rating points and has now climbed up six spots to 16th after his batting contributions into the 10th place. Kiwi’s Kane Williamson has also made a move to climb eight spots to 29th in the ODI batters’ ranking.

Virat Kohli moves up to fourth ODI place

Afghanistan had a slight chance to qualify for the semifinal of the tournament if England could destroy South Africa by a huge margin, but that didn’t happen, as the latter just blew away the Jos Buttler-led side’s campaign from bad to worse.

India’s opening batter, Shubman Gill, remains the number-one ranked batter in the ODI format. His veteran teammate, Virat Kohli, has moved up fourth after his second player of the match performance against Australia in the tournament during the semifinal in Dubai.

In the bowling department, New Zealand’s Matt Henry has received a huge reward after he celebrated his five-wicket haul against India. He rises three spots and onto the podium in the bowling rankings. Henry is just behind the Sri Lankan Maheesh Theekshana and the Proteas’ Keshav Maharaj.

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Mohammad Shami has also made a great comeback in the game. Many questioned if he would get the same help off the surface and repeat the heroics of the ODI World Cup last year at home. He has moved up three spots to 11 after picking up three wickets against Australia. South Africa’s Marco Jansen has moved up nine spots to 18th, with England’s Jofra Archer going up 13 spots to equal 19th.

India waits for Champions Trophy 2025 final’s opposition

Thanks to their victory, India has got four recovery days as they are waiting for the opposition in the final of the eight-team tournament in Dubai.

South Africa is facing New Zealand in the second semifinal, and the winner of the side will meet the Rohit Sharma-led side in the final on March 09.