MELBOURNE: Pakistani and Indian players on Monday failed to find a place in the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) team of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 with Brendon McCullum as its captain.

Pakistan lost to Australia by six wickets in the quarter-final in Adelaide while India went down to Michel Clarkeo’s team in the semi-final in Sydney.

McCullum was chosen as the captain following his aggressive, innovative and inspirational leadership during the 44-day tournament that was the cornerstone of his team’s progression to the final where it lost to Australia by seven wickets, said an ICC statement issued here.

In doing so, McCullum also scored 328 runs in nine matches with four half-centuries at a strike-rate of 188.50.

The team was chosen by a select group of experts who were given the task of picking a balanced side on the basis of performances in the tournament. Statistics were used but were not the sole basis for selections.

In addition to McCullum, the side includes four New Zealanders, three Australians, two South Africans and one Sri Lankan.

Zimbabwe’s Brendan Taylor, who finished with 433 runs in six matches, was named as the 12th man.

ICC General Manager of Cricket Geoff Allardice, chairman of the panel, said: “The panel had an extremely difficult choice of selecting a 12-member squad at the back of an outstanding tournament, highlighted by some eye-catching individual performances including two double centuries, 38 centuries, two hat-tricks and 28 four-wicket hauls.”

There were a number of other players that were discussed as possible selections in the team.

These included batsmen Mahmudullah (Bangladesh) and Shaiman Anwar (UAE), fast bowlers Umesh Yadav, Mohammad Shami (both India), Wahab Riaz (Pakistan) and spinners Imran Tahir (South Africa) and R. Ashwin (India).

“But there were so many brilliant individual performances during the tournament that it was not possible to fit them into the team. The panel eventually came up with this side, which, in their view, was the most balanced outfit that is capable of beating any side on any given day.”

ICC team in batting order:

Martin Guptill (New Zealand), Brendon McCullum (New Zealand, captain), Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka, wicketkeeper), Steven Smith (Australia), A.B. de Villiers (South Africa), Glenn Maxwell (Australia), Corey Anderson (New Zealand), Daniel Vettori (New Zealand), Mitchell Starc (Australia), Trent Boult (New Zealand), Morne Morkel (South Africa), Brendan Taylor (Zimbabwe, 12th man).

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2015

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