Harsha Bhogle reveals T20I Team of the Year 2024, excludes Kohli, Rohit, Suryakumar

Renowned commentator, Harsha Bhogle, recently unveiled his T20I side of the year for 2024. The demographic breakup of Bhogle’s side included five Indian players, two West Indians, and one player each from Australia, England, South Africa, and Afghanistan.

Bhogle picked two aggressive batters in the form of Travis Head and Phil Salt. Head had an instrumental 2024 so far. The Australian southpaw racked up 539 runs in 15 T20Is in 2024. On the other hand, Salt ended up with 467 runs in 17 T20Is. Quite surprisingly, he left out the Indian cricket stalwarts Virat Kohli and the former T20I Captain, Rohit Sharma.

"He had an astonishing white-ball season, is Travis Head. He's a left-hander, which makes such a lot of difference. He demolished powerplays and often got to 50, more than anybody else within the powerplay. It was just a great white-ball season for Travis Head," stated Bhogle, while speaking to Cricbuzz.

"Then another - he played for KKR in the IPL but did well everywhere - and I'm talking about Phil Salt. There was always a sense of excitement when both Travis Head and Phil Salt batted. The way the T20 game is going, you have to demolish the powerplay and then build after that," he noted.

Bhogle leaves Suryakumar Yadav out from his T20I squad

While picking his middle order batters, in a bold move, he yet again omitted Suryakumar Yadav, who has remained world's best batter in the format for a long time. Bhogle went onto pick Sanju Samson, Nicholas Pooran, and Heinrich Klaasen for different reasons. While he praised Samson's dynamism in terms of batting wherever the team would want him to, Bhogle labelled Pooran as one of the best middle-order players currently. The analyst went ahead with Klaasen ahead of Tristan Stubbs.

"I've got big batters at 3-4-5, and here's something interesting—there's not a huge lot to choose from. My number 4 selected himself because I think there are very few better middle-order players than Nicholas Pooran now. The temptation is to put him at 3, but I just think he plays the middle overs so well that Nicholas Pooran is my number 4. Not just for Nicholas Pooran but for a person, I just absolutely love watching, and that's Heinrich Klaasen. He is my number 5, just edging out Tristan Stubbs. Sanju Samson can be an opener or a number 3, and that's why he's in my team at number 3. I just love watching him. If you've got Head, Salt, and Sanju Samson, you're guaranteed an audience straight away. It's been a peculiar year, though, for Sanju Samson," he added.

Bhogle proceeded with the seam-bowling alternatives of Hardik Pandya and Andre Russell in his lineup. It's not unknown the fierce utility which Hardik provides with the bat. Bhogle particularly complimented Russel's fierce ball-striking ability. 

"I want seam-bowling all-rounders at 6 and 7. There's not a lot of spin-bowling all-rounders for those positions, other than Axar Patel. So, I looked at two seam-bowling all-rounders out of the three I had to choose from - Hardik Pandya, Marcus Stoinis, and Andre Russell. I think at 7, Andre Russell is fearless. It doesn't matter what the target is; if he comes in with 10 balls left, he can change a game in that short span. He's also started bowling more, and while he can be expensive, you really only need him to bowl two overs," added Bhogle.

As for the specialist bowlers, Bhogle went ahead with the spin duo of Rashid Khan and Varun Chakravarthy. There were no off-spinners though. The two genuine pacers which Bhogle shortlisted were the joint-most and second-highest wicket-taker of the T20 World Cup 2024, Arshdeep Singh and Jasprit Bumrah. 

Also Read: Best T20I XI of 2024: Top performers in shortest format of cricket

Bhogle's T20I team of year for 2024: Travis Head, Phil Salt, Sanju Samson, Nicholas Pooran, Heinrich Klaasen, Hardik Pandya, Andre Russell, Rashid Khan, Varun Chakravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah