Dubai: Shikhar Dhawan, Man of the Tournament in ICC Champions Trophy, and three more first timers in a global event made the ‘Team of Champions Trophy 2013’ which was announced on Monday.
The three others are India’s Bhubaneshwar Kumar, South Africa’s Ryan McLaren and New Zealand’s Mitchell McClenaghan.
The team included five players from India and two from England, the two finalists at Edgbaston on Sunday and shorlisted Mahendra Singh Dhoni as the captain. T
he remaining Indian players on the team were Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja and the England players were Jonathan Trott and James Anderson. Pakistan’s Misbah-ul-Haq, Kumar Sangakkara of Sri Lanka were the other members while Joe Root of England was picked as the 12th man.
Dhoni became the first captain in the history of the game to lift all three major ICC trophies – ICC World Twenty20 2007, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 and ICC Champions Trophy 2013.
While Dhoni got little opportunity to show his exploits with the bat, he marshalled his force brilliantly and was sharp and agile behind the stumps as he accounted for nine batsmen behind the wickets (five catches and four stumpings).
The Team of the Tournament was selected by a five-person selection panel that comprised Geoff Allardice (ICC General Manager – Cricket, and Chairman Event Technical Committee), Javagal Srinath (former India fast bowler and ICC Emirates Elite Panel match referee), Aleem Dar (ICC Emirates Elite Panel umpire), Scyld Berry (Wisden Editor from 2008-2011 and Sunday Telegraph correspondent) and Stephen Brenkley (correspondent of The Independent and Independent On Sunday).
Allardice, chairman of the panel, said: “It was an extremely difficult task for the panel to pick a team of 11 players from the quality of players who featured in this tournament.
“As the selection criteria was the performance in the ICC Champions Trophy 2013, some of the best players had to be left out, though they would walk very easily into any World XI.
“The side is a good mixture of specialists and allrounders, and includes six in-form batsmen, including Dhoni as a wicketkeeper-batsman, a spinner in Jadeja, McLaren as an all-rounder and the three most impressive fast bowlers of the tournament in Kumar, Anderson and McClenaghan.”
