ICC ODI Rankings: Shaheen's Top-5, Fakhar's 127 — But Three Sliding Batters Are Missing From the Headline

Fakhar Zaman's 127 off 99 deliveries — 11 fours, six sixes — sounds like a big innings. Now look at the ranking that followed: he moved up nine places to 37th, with 548 points. A knock in which 80 of those 127 runs (around 63%) came from boundaries, and the player still sits at only 37th? That question is the real story of this entire rankings update.

The scorecard said 127; the tape said one innings, not a structural surge. Let me be clear — I am not questioning the quality of Fakhar's innings. A strike rate of 128.3 with 127 runs is well above the ODI opener's par (85–95). The question is the ranking arithmetic: if a knock like that still leaves a player at only 548 points, his broader 12-month record must be modest. A player sitting in the ranking's volatile mid-band gets pulled nine places by one big score — that is a signal of instability, not momentum.

This report is based on the latest ICC ODI rankings, drawing on a tri-series involving Pakistan, England and Sri Lanka. One thing needs saying up front — the source does not state which match was played against which opponent, or at which venue. That means any claim that the ranking rise reflects genuine form needs caution. An opener making 127 against England's pace attack and 127 against Sri Lanka's spin are different currencies, and the report never opened that distinction.

Now the part that fell out of the headline. Shaheen Afridi has entered the top five bowlers — a big story, but the report gives neither his points nor his exact position. Haris Rauf rose too, but we get direction, not a number. The batting picture is different. Babar Azam held ninth — 661 points — but remember Shubman Gill leads at 841. That is roughly a 180-point gap. Babar once sat at the top of ODI rankings; holding ninth now is not stability, it is a decline that has stabilised. Salman Ali Agha is 13th (622 points), close enough to Babar's points to show that, on ranking at least, Pakistan's batting now rests on two pillars.

What does the rest say? Mohammad Rizwan is 44th (532 points), down two places — and, most tellingly, out of Pakistan's all-format squads. That is a selection-driven fall, not merely form. Saim Ayub is joint 68th (468 points, down four) and Shadab Khan is 93rd (398 points). A former frontline all-rounder sliding to 93rd is not just an individual slump — it is a question about Pakistan's ODI batting depth.

The picture splits in two: Shaheen, Rauf and Fakhar rising on one side; Rizwan, Saim and Shadab sliding on the other. When the bowling is sharp and the batting support cast is wobbling, the team's structure comes to rest on two batters — the most dangerous dependency in ODI cricket.

I have seen this cycle before. In the 1990s, when the BCA–Mafatlal Bowling Scheme had Frank Tyson coaching, the conveyor belt was producing quicks like Abey Kuruvilla, Paras Mhambrey and Salil Ankola. The question then was the same: producing fast bowlers is easy; building the batting depth behind them is hard. Pakistan is repeating that cycle now.

I am also prepared to be wrong. If this rankings update genuinely came at the end of a tri-series and Fakhar made that knock against a side like England, then both his confidence and technique are real — and if he sustains a strike rate above 100 across the next three to five innings, my argument collapses. Likewise, if Shaheen, now in the top five, bowls economically across a full series, his captain-plus-lead-bowler load could become a strength story. But until the numbers move beyond direction, the debate stays unfinished.

What to watch: if Rizwan's and Saim Ayub's points fall further over the next two ranking cycles while Shaheen's points stay unpublished, it will confirm that this story was about selection, not data. And next time Pakistan's batting chases a big target, count how many batters pass fifty — the headline will not tell you; the tape will.