&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Harry Brook targets long reign at top of T20I rankings after Sri Lanka sweep")
England white-ball captain Harry Brook has challenged his upbeat side to retain its top-ranked status in the ICC rankings after sweeping Sri Lanka across three T20Is at home. England regained their number one ranking in the shortest format after completing a comprehensive eight-wicket win over Sri Lanka in the third and final T20I on Saturday in Manchester. Brook’s T20I captaincy has improved England’s numbers in this format, having won 23 of the last 26 T20Is. Moreover, England leapfrogged India to sit at the top.
After the T20 World Cup in the subcontinent earlier this year, where England narrowly lost to India in the semifinal, the Brook-led
side thrashed the Men in Blue 4-0 in five-match T20Is at home. The defending champions India also lost to Ireland 2-0 before travelling to England, even though they outclassed Zimbabwe and Afghanistan in their next two series.
"I think we should be extremely proud to win another series, another whitewash series, and go back to world number one is an extremely good effort," Brook said after the 3rd T20I against Sri Lanka. "Everybody in that changing room should be really proud of themselves.
"I think everything's running so smoothly, especially in the field. Lads are taking it upon themselves to make sure they're in the right spots, and we're really nailing down and buying into everything that we're talking about in the outfield. Especially, we're putting 100% in, which is all that we can ever ask for,” he continued.
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Thanks to Brook’s blistering unbeaten 114 in the series opener in Southampton, his second T20I hundred, he finished as the second-highest leading run-scorer (170) in the series after Jos Buttler (172). With England dominating Sri Lanka across all departments, Brook wants his team to keep doing so and push harder every time to retain the number-one T20I ranking.
"That's why we went with our strongest side today. With the opportunity of whitewashing aside, you never want to take that for granted.
"We obviously knew that we had the opportunity to go number one before the series if we had beaten them 3-0. So that was always in the back of our minds.
"We've got to stay motivated to try and keep that spot for as long as possible. We probably don't play as much T20 as other nations, especially India, who play a hell of a lot of T20s. So, keeping that might not be as easy as it sounds, but every opportunity we get, we're going to try and dominate in opposition."
England will now return to One-Day Cricket mode, with three ODIs against Sri Lanka scheduled to start on Tuesday (Sep 22).
