Completing a clean sweep of Cricket Australia’s Team of the Year sides, Virat Kohli was named captain of the T20 Team of the Year, after being announced as the captain of the ODI and Test sides of the year as well. He is joined in the side by his RCB teammate AB de Villiers and compatriot Jasprit Bumrah.
England, Australia, India and South Africa all have two players each in the side while the World T20 champions West Indies only have a solitary player in the team. But arguably the biggest surprise in the team is the presence of South Africa’s Farhaan Behardien ahead of Dwayne Bravo, who is the leading wicket-taker in T20s in 2016 with 87 wickets.
David Warner, who captained Sunrisers Hyderabad to their maiden IPL title in 2016 and finished as the tournament’s second-leading run-scorer behind Virat Kohli and scored more than 1,000 T20 runs in the calendar year at an average of 45.25 and strike rate of 150.41 is the opener along with England’s Jason Roy.
Extra Cover: Two Indians feature, Virat Kohli captain in Cricket Australia's ODI Team of 2016
Jason Roy was chosen to partner David Warner at the top order, ahead of Chris Gayle, who is third on the leading T20 run-scorers in 2016 list and Tamim Iqbal, who has scored more than 1,000 runs at an average of 46.29 in 2016.
By virtue of scoring nearly 1,000 runs in a single tournament and finishing the year with the most runs (1,614), fifties (14) and centuries (4) in T20s despite playing just 31 matches, Virat Kohli takes the No.3 spot and captaincy of this side.
AB de Villiers may have missed a large chunk of the latter half of 2016 with injury but he did enough to warrant a place in this side. Jos Buttler’s heroics for England in the World T20 and his explosive batting helps him take the keeper slot.
Andre Russell, who is No.2 on the list of most T20 wickets in 2016 (76) and has over 1,000 runs to his name is a no-brainer. Over eight months, he was also a part of five different T20 title-winning sides as he won the Bangladesh Premier League, Big Bash League, Pakistan Super League, World T20 and the Caribbean Premier League.
While the selection of Behardien, who is the only player apart from Virat Kohli to average over 50 in T20s in 2016 (min 20 matches) ahead of Dwayne Bravo, who was 87 wickets and 881 runs certainly raises a few eyebrows.
The bowling department consists of Shahid Afridi, Adam Zampa ahead of Ravichandran Ashwin and the pace duo of Jasprit Bumrah and Mustafizur Rahman. Afridi, Zampa and Bumrah feature in the top six for T20 wickets in 2016 while Mustafizur was an integral part of Sunrisers’ IPL-winning side.
Cricket Australia’s T20 Team of 2016: David Warner, Jason Roy, Virat Kohli (C), AB de Villiers, Andre Russell, Jos Buttler (WK), Farhaan Behardien, Shahid Afridi, Adam Zampa, Jasprit Bumrah, Mustafizur Rahman.
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