Twenty 20 Blog

Tim Evershed of Twenty20Blog.co.uk shares his ultimate World Twenty20 2009 team, in batting order:

1) Tillakaratne Dilshan

Dilshan was the worthy winner of the ICC’s Player of the Tournament award and despite his failure in the final we had no hesitation in putting him first on our team of the World Cup.
His stats are compelling enough, most runs in the tournament (317), highest score (96), and average of 56 and a strike rate of 144.75.
But Dilshan’s story was about more than just numbers, he was the rock of Sri Lanka’s batting – scoring well over half the team total in the semi against West Indies – and he did it in style. To cap it all he invented a new shot and had it named after him, the gravity-defying ‘Dilscoop’ and was agonisingly short of the only century of the tournament.

2) Chris Gayle

If the tournament needed setting alight, which is arguable after The Netherlands win over England in the opener, it was Gayle that lit the blue touch paper with his innings at The Oval on the second day. Six sixes and six fours, the 88 he scored off the Australian bowlers was a thing of savage beauty.
Brett Lee took the worst of it, but it put the skids under the whole Aussie side and they weren’t able to recover before meeting Sri Lanka.
Always the key wicket for the West Indies opponents he carried his bat through the innings in the semi scoring 63 of his side’s 101.

3) Shahid Afridi

In the early stages of the World Cup Afridi frankly looked scared of his bat. Each time he walked out to the middle he seemed to know that it was only a matter of time before he gently lobbed it to mid-wicket. But, promotion to Number Three in the batting order worked like a charm and his 54 not out in the final followed a crucial half-century in the semi.
Would have made this side for his bowling anyway, 11 wickets during the tournament with an economy rate of 5.32 are figures that stand up with the best spinners around.

4) AB de Villiers

A class act, AB is improving all the time. He followed up an excellent stint in the IPL with 186 runs at an average of 37.2 and a strike rate of 155 and was fourth in the six-hitting category with six.  In addition he was superb in the field with five catches.

5) Dwayne Bravo

Showed how much he’s been missed by the Windies recently, brilliant with bat, ball and in the field, he was one of the main reasons for their charge to the semis. 154 runs including two half centuries and six sixes he also took 10 wickets at an average of 18.4.
His performances and enthusiasm lifted his whole team and helped put a smile back on West Indies cricket in what was becoming a dismal summer in England for them.

6) Younus Khan

Pakistan could have imploded after the heavy defeat to England; Khan steadied the ship against The Netherlands, and then calmly guided his team all the way to the trophy. Juggled his bowling resources well, promoted Afridi up the order in the latter stages and takes the credit for the bowling plan that saw the final start with a wicket maiden. Once Dilshan had gone Pakistan felt they had one hand on the trophy.
And he also averaged 57.33 with the bat.

7) Kamran Akmal

Makes the side for his keeping – seven stumpings and one catch - but his 188 runs were scored at a strike rate of 125.33 so will keep our batting going in the unlikely event the six in front of him fail.

8 ) Wayne Parnell

With nine wickets at a high-quality average of 13.22 and a tidy average of 5.8 this World Cup saw the 19-year-old left-arm seamer come of age. His 4-13 against the West Indies was one of the bowling performances of the tournament.

9) Umar Gul

For the second Twenty/20 World Cup in a row the Pakistani paceman was top wicket taker, with 13 this time around. Bowling at both the start and finish of innings his toe-crunching yorkers and mastery of reverse swing prompted many favourable comparisons with Pakistani legends Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.
Dismantled New Zealand with five wickets for the cost of just six runs and twice came close to the first Twenty/20 hat trick in that match. Quite outstanding.

10) Ajantha Mendis

One wicket behind Gul during the World Cup with 12 Sri Lanka’s new mystery spinner proved to be the real deal and more than lived up to his pre-tournament hype. Bowling in tandem with Murali he slowed down batting run rates and ensured his team’s success in reaching the final. Again, it was a shame about the final once they actually got there, but we can’t hold that against him.

11) Muttiah Muralitharan

The old master showed all his class again, he’s still around with his bendy arms, contagious grin and array of balls, which can bamboozle even the best batsmen. The senior partner in Sri Lanka’s spin twins took nine wickets and crucially his economy rate of 5.85 becalmed several innings, whether he was called upon in the middle, end or even during the powerplay overs.

Rationale

It is the nature of these selections that some superb performers will get squeezed out and some didn’t make the team because we wanted to pick a balanced side. It needed a captain and a wicket keeper, so Younus Khan and Kamran Akmal both got the nod even though it meant the latter dropping down the batting order.

The batting line up speaks for itself, a line-up that includes powerful hitters, inventive shot makers and sublime strokemakers. It was tough leaving Jacques Kallis out as he had a wonderful tournament whilst showing that twenty20 doesn’t have to be about power hitting while at the other end of the scale Yuvraj Singh deserves a mention for topping the six-hitting charts for the second World Cup in a row. We thought about putting Kallis in at three, but Afridi was transformed once he began batting there and we couldn’t move him.

Afridi and Dwayne Bravo are both vital to this team, as they not only add batting power but an extra spin and pace option to our four-man bowling attack, while Lasith Malinga was also unlucky to miss out on selection as he took some key wickets with his unconventional pace.

Looking back the team is made up of the final four teams in the tournament (4 Pakistan, 3 Sri Lanka, 2 South Africa and 2 West Indies), whilst that wasn’t a conscious decision when selections were being made it does seem like the right players made the side.

By Tim Evershed, Twenty20Blog.co.uk