Champions England were the most represented with four players in the World Cup team of the tournament announced by the International Cricket Council (ICC) yesterday, with New Zealand’s Kane Williamson captaining the side.
England opener Jason Roy, middle-order batsman Joe Root, all-rounder Ben Stokes and pacer Jofra Archer made the team following Sunday’s victory over the Black Caps in a thrilling final where the hosts prevailed on boundary count after a tied Super Over.
The side was picked by ex-internationals Ian Bishop, Ian Smith and Isa Guha, along with cricket writer Lawrence Booth, while ICC general manager cricket, Geoff Allardice, was the fifth member and convener of the committee.
Rohit Sharma (India)
648 runs at 81.00
The 32-year-old emerged as the tournament’s star batsman, making history by becoming the first player to hit five hundreds in a single World Cup — a scintillating run that included three successive centuries against England, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Sharma, the tournament’s leading scorer, totalled 648 runs, just short of Sachin Tendulkar’s World Cup record of 673 scored during the 2003 edition.
Jason Roy (England)
443 runs at 63.28
England did not look the same without their go-for-broke opener when he was missing for three matches after suffering a torn hamstring. With Roy, who scored 443 runs at an average of 63.28, restored to the line-up, England’s confidence was back and, with it, the aggressive style that has served them so well over the past four years.
Joe Root (England)
556 runs at 61.77
Captain Eoin Morgan described Joe Root as the ‘glue’ in the England lineup which includes a bevy of swashbuckling match-winners. The middle-order batsman may have struggled in the final against New Zealand but had notched up two hundreds and three fifties by then. Root also took 13 catches in the World Cup, the most by a fielder in an ODI series/tournament. Allan Border and VVS Laxman had 12 catches each to their names at the Benson and Hedges World Series in 1988-89 and the VB Series in 2003-04 respectively.
Shakib Al Hasan
(Bangladesh)
606 runs at 86.57, 11 wickets at 36.27
Showing why he is ranked as the world’s top all-rounder in ODIs, Shakib made the most of his promotion to the No. 3 position, accumulating 606 runs and also picking up 11 wickets.
Kane Williamson
(New Zealand)
578 runs at 82.57
The unflappable Black Caps batsman scored 578 runs in the tournament — the most by a captain in a World Cup, going past Mahela Jayawardene’s mark of 548 in 2007. He was named man of the tournament, but that will not erase the heartache of his team’s defeat in the final.
Ben Stokes (England)
465 runs at 66.42, 7 wickets at 35.14
Man of the match in the final with an unbeaten 84, Stokes was the ninth-highest run scorer in the tournament despite coming in at five in the batting order, with 465 runs. Stokes also proved handy with the ball, taking seven wickets, and produced one of the catches of the tournament in the opening game to dismiss South Africa’s Andile Phehlukwayo.
Alex Carey (Australia)
375 runs at 62.50, 20 dismissals
Confident with the gloves and capable of explosive hitting, the 27-year-old Carey was the tournament’s most eye-catching wicketkeeper-batsman and by the semi-final he had been promoted to number five in the batting order as a reward for his composed displays.
Mitchell Starc (Australia)
27 wickets at 18.59
Mitchell Starc finished as the tournament’s leading wicket-taker with 27, in the process setting a new record for most wickets at a single World Cup. The lethal left-arm quick’s haul broke the previous record of 26 held by retired Australia paceman Glenn McGrath.
Jofra Archer (England)
20 wickets at 23.05
Barbados-born paceman Archer took 20 wickets to underline why England were so keen to rush him into the squad. His fiery spells were crucial to England’s victory — no-one took more wickets for the champions — and fittingly he bowled the Super Over that sealed the trophy in a final to remember.
Lockie Ferguson
(New Zealand)
21 wickets at 19.47
Ferguson’s 3-50 in the final made him the second-highest wicket taker in the tournament with 21 in just nine games at an impressive average of 19.47. It meant he outshone his more celebrated teammate Trent Boult, who finished with 17 wickets.
Jasprit Bumrah (India)
18 wickets at 20.61
With his awkward bowling action, Bumrah will never earn many style points, but the paceman makes up for that with a potent combination of speed and accuracy that helped him top the India charts with 18 wickets.
India’s Rohit Sharma became first player to hit five centuries in a single World Cup and was the leading scorer in the tournament with 648 runs. (AFP)
