Soaring Malan’s small error
England's Dawid Malan has notched up the highest-ever rating for a batsman in the men's Twenty20 International rankings after topping the scoring charts against South Africa, the International Cricket Council said on Wednesday.
The 33-year-old has reached 915 points, the first player to cross the 900-point mark in the format. Australia's Aaron Finch posted exactly 900 points in July 2018.
Malan's terrific run with the bat saw him top the series aggregate with 173 runs as England completed a 3-0 series sweep against South Africa.
His match-winning unbeaten 99 in the final match on Tuesday helped England leapfrog Australia to take the top spot in the men's T20I team rankings.
Malan holds a 44-point advantage in the rankings over Pakistan's Babar Azam, whom he overtook in September.
Yet, he missed out on the chance to score two hundreds in T20Is. The simple reason -- he forgot to do the basic math.
Dawid Malan started Tuesday's innings a train, but ended it quite calmly. The game was put beyond South Africa as Malan crashed a six and a four to get the scores level. However, he chose to finish the match with a single and thus, he remained stranded on 99.
In the post-match presentation, Malan acknowledged that he did not know about the hundred. "I honestly should've known about the hundred, I did, but I went for the single either way. Maybe I should go back to math class," Malan said.
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