At the end of the 46-day mega event, The Field picks its best World Cup playing XI.
After 46 days of non-stop cricketing action featuring 48 matches in 10 cities across India, Australia beat hosts India to be crowned the ICC Men’s ODI World Cup champions for a record-extending sixth time.
Fans were treated to high quality cricket matches with some stunning individual performances. Records were broken, high-flyers were upset and new heroes were discovered.
After a lot of bickering and heated arguments, The Field finally came up with our team of the tournament.
The team is led by World Cup winning-captain Pat Cummins and features four players from hosts India, three Australians, two South Africans and one player each from New Zealand and Afghanistan.
ICC Men’s ODI World Cup: Golden silence as Australia clinch the silverware for sixth time
Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were the unanimous choices to be in The Field’s team of the tournament. Both Sharma and Kohli had a fruitful campaign with the bat and slot into the team as opener and at No 3 respectively.
Sharma’s ability to take on the bowling in the power play was crucial in laying down the platform for India to set as well as chase down big totals at the World Cup. Sharma scored three half-centuries and got to three figures once in the tournament, all while batting at a strike rate of 125, the highest by an opener after Travis Head.
It was a historic campaign for player of the tournament, Kohli. He not only broke his idol Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most One-Day International centuries, but also set the record for most runs in a single edition of the tournament. Kohli’s 771 runs saw him break Tendulkar’s record of 673 runs set in the 2003 edition.
Kohli also became the second-highest run scorer in World Cup history with 1,795 runs.
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There was a lot of debate among The Field’s members over who would take the other opener’s spot.
