Dubai: Cricket Australia has named former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly as the skipper of the greatest Champions Trophy XI on their website ahead of the upcoming Champions Trophy to be held in England and Wales from June 1 to 18.
Ganguly always performed brilliantly in this as a powerful opener with Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag. Out of the 13 matches he played, he hammered centuries in the semi-final and final of the 2000 event.
Others named in the XI are Chris Gayle, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Damien Martyn, Rahul Dravid (wk), Shane Watson, Daniel Vettori, Kyle Mills, Muttiah Muraltiharan and Glenn McGrath.
The only two who are still active as players from the list are Gayle and Watson.
Gayle is the most aggressive among all of them but he will not be seen in action as West Indies do not figure among the teams that qualified to play in the Champions Trophy. He was the second highest scorer of the tournament in 2004 and was at his best in the 2006 edition with three hundreds for an average of 79 from eight matches.
Gibbs hit two centuries in 2002 and one in 2004 and a breezy 77 against West Indies in 2006. Kallis has always been consistent especially in 1998 edition when he was named man of the match in semi-final and final, which resulted in South Africa winning the title. Martyn has hit five half centuries from 11 innings while Dravid as wicketkeeper was the most consistent among Indian batsmen batting from No. 3 to No. 6 and cracking six fifties from 15 innings. Watson has proved to be an outstanding match winning all-rounder hitting an unbeaten 57 in the 2006 decider, and scoring consecutive unbeaten centuries in 2009, blasting England and then New Zealand to help Australia win the trophy.
Vettori proved an outstanding all-rounder and was at his best in 2009 guiding New Zealand to the final — and so did his teammate Mills as a bowler in 2009. Muralitharan was the most feared among bowlers with his best in 2002 when he took ten wickets for an average of seven. McGrath provided regular breakthroughs for his team, with his best being 5 for 37 in Colombo in 2002.
