Shree Charani Sets India's Highest-Ever ICC T20I Rating

Shree Charani is now the highest-rated player India has ever had in T20 international cricket, batter or bowler, man or woman. The 22-year-old off-spinner’s rating rose to 804 points in the ICC’s update on September 15, making her the first Indian bowler in either the men’s or women’s game to cross the 800-point mark. It comes two days after she took 4 for 20 in the final to help India beat Sri Lanka by 73 runs and win a record eighth Women’s Asia Cup title in Dubai.

What happened

India beat Sri Lanka by 73 runs in the Women’s Asia Cup final at Dubai International Stadium on September 13, their fourth title in the tournament’s T20 era and eighth overall, extending their own record as the competition’s most successful side. Charani was the difference in the final: 4 for 20 in her four overs, capping a tournament in which she took 12 wickets. India’s players did not collect the trophy on stage from Asian Cricket Council chairman and Pakistan Cricket Board head Mohsin Naqvi, continuing the distance the team has kept from Pakistani officials since the 2025 Pahalgam attack.

Two days later, the ICC’s regular rankings update turned that final spell into a career milestone. Charani’s rating climbed to 804 points, the first time any Indian bowler, across both the men’s and women’s game, has gone past 800 in the T20I rankings. Only Australia’s Megan Schutt, who set the all-time women’s bowling record of 806 points in November 2018, now rates higher; England’s Sophie Ecclestone is the only other bowler to have breached 800. At 804, Charani’s rating is also the highest ever recorded by an Indian player in T20I cricket in any discipline, batting or bowling, surpassing Mithali Raj’s 780 rating points in the batting rankings back in 2011.

The rise has been fast even by the standards of white-ball cricket. Charani, who grew up in Yerramalapalli village in Andhra Pradesh’s Kadapa district, made her T20I debut against England on June 28, 2025, taking four wickets to become only the second Indian woman to do so on debut, after Sravanthi Naidu. She was rated the world’s number one T20I bowler for the first time within 360 days of that debut, overtaking England’s Linsey Smith. Fifteen months on, she has extended the lead rather than surrendered it.

How ICC’s bowler ratings actually work

The number itself is worth explaining, because it is not a simple wickets-and-average count. ICC player ratings run on a 0-to-1000 scale and are recalculated by algorithm after every international match, with no selection panel or subjective scoring involved. Each performance earns points based on wickets taken, runs conceded, the strength of the batting line-up dismissed and the match result, so bowling out a top-order stacked with high-rated batters is worth more than the same figures against a weaker one. The rating a player carries at any time is a weighted moving average of their recent performances, with the newest matches counted most heavily and older ones fading out of the calculation over two to three years. That is why a single tournament, played well against strong opposition, can move a rating sharply in a way a raw career average never would.

Context for the number: the ICC’s own guidance treats anything above 750 as enough to put a bowler in the world’s top ten, and anything past 900 as rare territory few players ever reach. Charani’s 804 sits comfortably in the second tier of that scale, and with Schutt’s 806 having stood since 2018, she is now one good series away from a rating no bowler, from any country, has carried before.

India’s climb across the rankings

Charani was not the only Indian to move after the Asia Cup. Deepti Sharma climbed four places to number two in the bowling rankings on the back of a tournament-leading 14 wickets. Shafali Verma, the tournament’s leading run-scorer with 236 runs, rose from seventh to sixth in the batting rankings and climbed five places to 15th among all-rounders. Smriti Mandhana, who scored 213 runs in five innings, sits fifth in the batting table. Further down the list, uncapped-until-recently bowlers Nandani Sharma and Prema Rawat jumped 10 and 50 places respectively, the kind of movement that reflects how sharply a single ICC event can reshape the rankings for players outside the established top ten.

Player	Ranking category	Movement	New position / rating
Shree Charani	Bowling	Extends No. 1	No. 1, 804 points
Deepti Sharma	Bowling	Up 4 places	No. 2
Shafali Verma	Batting	Up 1 place	No. 6, 741 points
Shafali Verma	All-rounder	Up 5 places	No. 15
Smriti Mandhana	Batting	Holds position	No. 5, 745 points
Nandani Sharma	Bowling	Up 10 places	No. 94
Prema Rawat	Bowling	Up 50 places	No. 96

What happens next

There is no rest between tournaments. Cricket returns to the Asian Games at Aichi-Nagoya in Japan this week, and India’s women, defending the gold they won at Hangzhou in 2023, open their title defence against hosts Japan in the quarter-finals on September 18, three days after this rankings update. Harmanpreet Kaur continues as captain with Mandhana as vice-captain. Beyond that, the team’s next assignment is a full tour of South Africa in December, covering a one-off Test and three matches each in the ODI and T20I formats.

India’s men are also mid-series this week, playing Afghanistan in a T20I series that has thrown up its own headlines around Mohammad Nabi’s continued form and Nitish Kumar Reddy’s emergence as a possible successor to Hardik Pandya’s all-rounder slot. IndiaRealTime’s live cricket scores page tracks fixtures and results across international and major domestic cricket, updated hourly.

Elsewhere on IndiaRealTime this week: NSE’s IPO price band finally opened for bidding, and India’s monsoon pulled out two days late in a season that was already short on rain.

FAQs

What is Shree Charani’s current ICC rating?
804 points in the T20I bowling rankings as of the September 15, 2026 update, the highest rating ever held by an Indian player, batter or bowler, in T20I cricket.

Who has a higher T20I bowling rating than Charani?
Only Australia’s Megan Schutt, whose 806 points from November 2018 remains the all-time record among women bowlers. England’s Sophie Ecclestone is the only other bowler to have crossed 800.

How are ICC player ratings calculated?
By algorithm, after every international match. Points depend on wickets, runs conceded, the rating of the batters dismissed, and the match result, weighted so recent performances count more than older ones, which fade out of the calculation over two to three years.

When did Charani become the world’s number one T20I bowler?
She first reached number one within 360 days of her T20I debut on June 28, 2025, overtaking England’s Linsey Smith. She has held the top spot since.

What does India’s women’s team play next?
The Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, starting with a quarter-final against hosts Japan on September 18, followed by a tour of South Africa in December covering a Test, three ODIs and three T20Is.

Sources

• ICC: Charani closes in on all-time record in ICC Women’s T20I bowling rankings
• ICC: About ICC Rankings, how team and player rankings are calculated
• The Tribune: Sree Charani breaks 800-points barrier as India stars rise in ICC T20I rankings
• Crictoday: Shree Charani becomes number one T20I bowler within 360 days of her India debut
• Al Jazeera: India win Women’s Asia Cup but do not accept trophy
• Olympics.com: Asian Games 2026 cricket schedule

Updated September 15, 2026, following the ICC’s rankings update after the Women’s Asia Cup final.