Best XI from the World Cup-winning teams this decade

7. Ben Stokes

A few months before the 2019 World Cup, perhaps more than 12 months prior to it, Ben Stokes was involved in a controversy that first got him suspended and he had to head to the courts a lot of times. The biggest thing was, it impacted his game quite significantly and was far from the player we know he can be. The English skipper kept suggesting Stokes is a huge member of the English squad and they will keep trusting him.

In the very first game of the tournament against South Africa, he produced a man of the match performance, which includes one of the catches of the decade as well at mid-wicket. He didn’t do much in the next three games but nearly took England out of trouble against Sri Lanka single-handedly, before he ran out of partners and remained unbeaten on 82.

He tried his best to dish out a memorable performance against Australia and nearly got his side over the line, but Mitchell Starc’s bamboozling yorker killed his aspirations and smashed another 79 against India. No one can forget what he did in the final, keeping England in the hunt till the very end and hit a crucial boundary in the super-over as well. He scored 465 runs, most of them coming under immense pressure.