Dubai- After going unrepresented in the ICC’s men’s ‘T20 Team of the Year’ due to a disastrous World Cup campaign in the UAE, no Indian player featured in the global body’s ‘ODI Team of the Year’ which features two players from minnows Ireland.
Incidentally, the team also doesn’t have any Australia, English, New Zealand or West Indies players.
The team, which has Pakistan’s Babar Azam as its captain, has two Pakistanis including Fakhar Zaman.
South Africans Janneman Malan and Rassie van der Dussen, Bangladeshis Shakib Al Hasan, Mustafizur Rahaman and Mushfiqur Rahim, who is also the designated wicketkeeper, Sri Lankans Wanindu Hasaranga and Dishmantha Chameera along with Irishmen Paul Stirling and Simi Singh form the rest of the squad.
India, in the year 2021, played six ODIs and won four losing two.
The two 50-over series that they played were against England at home, which they won 2-1, and the other was an away clash against Sri Lanka in the island nation which was also won by an identical margin.
The problem with non-selection of an Indian player in the XI is more to do with lack of matches rather than poor show since they have won both the series that they played in 2021.
The only Indian player, who has played all the ODI matches in 2021 is veteran opener Shikhar Dhawan, who had 297 runs from six games.
The likes of Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma only played three ODIs in 2021 and ditto for premier bowlers, who also didn’t play all the six games.
Buvneshwar Kumar was there in five of those six games with his tally of wickets not in double digits (9 from 5 matches).
In order to make it to the team of the year, there have to be enough impactful performances to earn points which Indians didn’t have.
For example, Ireland’s Stirling had a whopping 705 runs in 14 ODIs in 2021 with an average of 79.66 which made him an automatic selection.
Proteas opener Janneman has scored 509 runs in 8 games with an average of nearly 85.
Babar, who has played least among the 11 players also has 405 runs in six games with two hundreds while country mate Zaman has 369 runs in the year.
In the middle-order, Rassie van der Dussen had an average of 57 in the year 2021 with 342 runs in eight games while Shakib was superb as an all-rounder with 277 runs and 17 wickets.
Mushfiqur Rahim had 400 plus tally along with stumpings and catches while Wanindu Hasaranga scored 356 runs and picked 12 wickets.
The two pacers Mustafzur Rahaman and Dushmantha Chameera had 18 and 20 wickets respectively while off-spinner Simi had 19 scalps to his credit.
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