Dewald Brevis, the 22-year-old South African batter, who found himself outside the top 100 on the ICC Rankings for batters in T20Is, witnessed an outrageous jump of 80 spots to land on the 21st position after a scintillating century against Australia in the second of the three-match series in Darwin, on Tuesday, August 12. Brevis took on the Australian batters and never stopped. He did struggle a bit after completing his century but by then, he had ensured that there was a sizeable distance between a win and Australia.
Brevis recorded the second-fastest T20I century for South Africa and became the youngest Proteas player to slam a ton. Brevis' 125* was the highest T20I score by a Proteas player and also the highest by anyone in the format in Australia on the international stage. 218 was always going to be a tricky chase as Australia needed everything to go their way, and losing a couple of wickets early on didn't help.
The hero of the first game, Tim David, did try his best with a 24-ball fifty, but with not much support from the other end, the target was always far from the hosts. David found himself in the 10th spot with a six-spot gain, forcing Yashasvi Jaiswal to move out of the top 10. South Africa's Ryan Rickelton and Tristan Stubbs, the top performers in the first two games, gained 45 and 12 spots respectively, to be in 81st and joint-27th places.
Among other changes for batters in T20Is, Travis Head, after a couple of single-digit scores, dropped down to No.4, while South African skipper Aiden Markram also lost four spots to be in 35th spot. Markram, however, gained a couple of spots on the all-rounder's list to be in the 13th place there.
Among bowlers, Nathan Ellis, who was rested for the second T20I, moved down by four spots, out of the top 10, thereby helping the likes of Arshdeep Singh and Maheesh Theekshana gain a spot each to 9th and 10th places, respectively. Josh Hazlewood gained a couple of spots, while Lungi Ngidi was in 50th place after a rise of 14 spots.
