Pakistan's 'Rise' in ICC Rankings Is Half the Truth: Shaheen's Top Five Masks a Silent Batting Core Collapse

Shaheen Shah Afridi has broken into the top five of the ICC ODI bowling rankings, Fakhar Zaman has climbed nine places to 37th, and Haris Rauf is rising too. The headline makes it sound as if Pakistan's ODI cricket is surging again. But last night, in my Woolloongabba garage in Brisbane, I opened the broken table behind that headline and saw this: in the same dataset, three players are rising and three are falling. Mohammad Rizwan has dropped two places to 44th and has been dropped from all-format squads. Saim Ayub has slipped four places to joint 68th. And Shadab Khan is down one to 93rd — for an all-rounder, that is a quarterly siren.

The headline sells a 'rise,' but the same column in the table shows a two-speed squad. That is my core argument today: Pakistan's ODI 'rise' is really a pace rise and a batting-core decline — two separate stories that, fused into one headline, send the wrong message.

Context needs to be clear. All the statistics here are ODI (50-over) format — Test or T20 form cannot be mixed in. The ICC ODI ranking is a weighted rolling-average system: recent matches carry more weight, performances against higher-ranked opponents carry more weight still, and there is a minimum-match threshold. That is why a single tri-series — featuring England and Sri Lanka — can lift a player nine places if his prior sample is thin. Fakhar Zaman's 127 off 99 balls, a strike rate of roughly 128, with 63 percent of his runs coming in boundaries, is the picture of an aggressive opening innings — but only one innings. The article gives no answer on venue, pitch type, or whether the opposition bowling was at full strength. Which means: before declaring this ranking jump a 'return to form,' at least three or four innings should be waited for.

Now to the actual analysis. The most telling cell in the table is Babar Azam's: ninth, 661 points. For a man who sat at the top of ODI rankings for years, ninth is not just 'bad form' — it is a signal that the batting anchor's foundation is shaking. The same picture is clearer with Rizwan: down to 44th, and not only that, dropped from all-format squads. The pair was the spine of Pakistan's ODI innings — Babar gave stability, Rizwan handled the middle overs. Now both pillars are moving at once. And Shadab Khan at 93rd, 398 points — that is a quiet danger. Because Shadab's value was never just ranking points; his leg-spin plus lower-order batting combination built Pakistan's ODI balance. At 93rd, it is not just one player's decline, it is the erosion of the team's spin-all-rounder balance.

On the other side, Shaheen. A pacer in the top five who is also captain — that is a huge strategic asset, but also a single point of failure. I have seen many times the temptation to over-bowl a pace captain across formats because the team relies on him. Shaheen has a history of knee and injury issues — not in this article, but the risk is real. Haris Rauf is rising, but his bowling average, economy, or wickets — none of those numbers are in the article. Meaning his 'rise' is only a direction, magnitude unknown. This is where the information gap is biggest.

The comparison with India is hidden in the article's own data, and it is the most brutal. Gill is first with 841 points, Kohli third — India has two batters in the top three. Pakistan's best batter is ninth, and he is trending down. Then Salman at 13th, then a long gap, then Fakhar at 37th. This distribution itself shows how narrow Pakistan's elite band is — one top-five bowler, one sliding top-ten batter, and the rest between 35 and 95.

So where is Pakistan as a team? The article gives no team ranking. That is the real hint: no matter how bright the individual headlines, the team's ODI position presumably has not changed much, which is why it was not mentioned. Individual 'optics' and team trajectory — two different things.

Now let me argue against myself. I say Pakistan's rise is half-true — but I could be wrong for this reason: rankings are a rolling system. Babar at ninth still has 661 points inside the top ten, and one good series could return him to three or four. Rizwan's exclusion, if it is a deliberate 'generational change' by selectors, is not a crisis but a strategic decision — a balance between present and future. Shadab's 93rd could be temporary, because all-rounder rankings swing big with one or two good series. And the biggest weakness: I have not seen Shaheen's or Rauf's bowling data (average, economy, wickets), so I am estimating pace strength only from ranking movement. If the tri-series is a warm-up before a major assignment, its predictive weight is even lower.

My prediction, confidence level medium (60 percent): in the next ICC ODI update, Babar will not return to the top ten, and Shadab will not fall below 85 or, if dropped from the squad, the spin balance crisis will become evident. If Shaheen is bowled across all formats without rotation, the risk of injury or rest news in the next six months is strong. And Fakhar's 127 — that is not proven form, only possibility.

This ranking table reminds me of an old line: Tiki-taka died in Moscow because everyone was looking at the passing stats, not the goalposts. Same here — everyone is looking at the headline and seeing a 'rise,' not seeing half the columns in the table. The question now is for the Pakistan Cricket Board: under this bright pace headline, can they see the crack in the batting anchor, or will they stay satisfied with Shaheen's top five?