Danish Kaneria picks his T20I XI of 2021, no place for Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are two of the biggest names in limited-overs cricket. Both are there in the list of leading run-scorers in T20Is, with Rohit becoming only the third player to score over 3000 runs in this format recently. Kohli has made 3227 runs in 95 matches at an average of 52.04 and a strike rate of 137.90.

But, former Pakistani spinner Danish Kaneria has a different view when it comes to these two players. In his recent YouTube video, Kaneria picked his T20I team of the year 2021. His team contains three Indian players, but both Kohli and Rohit failed to make the cut.

He included Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam as the two openers in his team and picked the latter as the captain. Kaneria picked Jos Buttler at number three position while Mitchell Marsh and Liam Livingstone followed next in the line-up.

On picking Buttler over Kohli and Rohit, Kaneria said: “People will say at one down it should be Rohit Sharma or KL Rahul or Virat Kohli but no I have a different opinion, I will go with Jos Buttler. He (Buttler) played really well and he had also scored a hundred in World Cup. So, he deserves the spot.”

Who are the three Indian players in Danish Kaneria’s T20I Team of 2021?

Danish Kaneria picked Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, and Jasprit Bumrah in his team. He also selected Rishabh Pant as the 12th man in his team. He even made Ashwin the vice-captain of the team. The off-spinner picked six wickets in three matches at an average of 10.50, economy of 5.25, and a strike rate of 12 in the T20 WC 2021.

Shaheen Afridi and Trent Boult are the other two other fast bowlers in Kaneria’s team apart from Bumrah. The other spinner in the XI is leggie Adam Zampa who picked 13 wickets in seven matches at an average of 12.07, economy of 5.81, and a strike rate of 12.4 in the T20 World Cup 2021.

Here is Kaneria’s T20I Team of 2021:

Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, Jos Buttler, Liam Livingstone, Mitchell Marsh, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravi Ashwin, Shaheen Afridi, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, Adam Zampa, Rishabh Pant (12th Man)