Harsha Bhogle picks the best T20 XI of the year 2019

With 2019 coming to an end in a couple of days, ace commentator Harsha Bhogle revealed his T20 team of the year. The soon-to-end year did not see too many T20I matches being played especially in the first half of the year as all the teams were focusing on the 50-over World Cup in England. But after the completion of the competition, all the major teams shifted their focus to the T20Is, keeping in mind the T20 World Cup next year.

Harsha Bhogle, nonetheless, managed to pick the best eleven of the lot to form a star-studded team. The team has three players from India, two each from South Africa and West Indies and one each from Australia, England, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. Harsha Bhogle started by picking up David Warner and KL Rahul as the openers.

Warner was the top run-scorer in this year’s Indian Premier League and has finished the year with an average of more than 70 in the shortest format of the game. He also scored two centuries with one coming in the IPL and the other one coming against Sri Lanka a couple of months ago. KL Rahul, on the other hand, has amassed 1262 runs in T20s with an average of 50.48.

At number three, Harsha Bhogle went for Virat Kohli who has scored 930 runs in 24 innings this year that included some stunning match-winning knocks against the likes of South Africa and West Indies. Kohli’s long-time IPL teammate AB de Villiers was picked at number four for scoring an impressive 1580 runs in 43 innings.

At number five, Bhogle went for Kieron Pollard although he had a tough time picking one between the West Indies all-rounder and Glenn Maxwell. Pollard was followed by another West Indies star Andre Russell who set this year’s IPL on fire with his amazing power-hitting. Overall this year, Russell scored nearly 1,000 runs and picked up 33 wickets in 40 T20s.

Bowling lineup

As far as the bowling lineup is concerned, Harsha Bhogle picked two spinners and three pacers. Afghanistan spinner Mohammad Nabi and South Africa’s Imran Tahir are the two spinners in the team. Nabi has picked up 32 wickets in 47 T20s in addition to scoring 873 runs this year while Tahir picked up an impressive 79 wickets in 51 T20s this year.

For the pace bowling lineup, Bhogle went for Chris Jordan, Lasith Malinga andDeepak Chahar. Jordan claimed 41 wickets in 33 matches while Malinga took 34 in 26 games. Chahar, on the other hand, has taken 55 T20 wickets this year including the sensational spell of 6 for 7 runs against Bangladesh.

Harsha Bhogle’s T20 XI of the year 2019

David Warner, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell, Mohammad Nabi, Chris Jordan, Deepak Chahar, Lasith Malinga, Imran Tahir.