Cricket World Cup History: Best XI featuring one player from each World Cup winning team
The 12th edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup is about to commence in England. In the earlier 11 editions, Australia have won the World Cup the most number of times with 5 wins, India and West Indies have won the tournament twice each while Pakistan and Sri Lanka have registered one win each.
New Zealand, South Africa, England and Bangladesh are yet to win a World Cup while Afghanistan are still relatively new to International cricket. Out of the 11 occasions, the host nations have won the tournament only thrice. While the first three editions of World Cup in England was played as a 60 over format, the later editions were all 50 over formats.
Here, an attempt is made to select the best Playing XI with one player from each previous 11 editions of World Cup-winning teams. As the number of player from one team is restricted to only one, some legends have to miss out. Actually from the pool of class players, one can make two or three teams of identical might.
Openers: Sachin Tendulkar and Adam Gilchrist
Sachin Tendulkar was unlucky in the first five World Cups that he was part of. It all changed in his final World Cup appearance in 2011, when MS Dhoni’s men conquered the world after a long gap of 28 years. Tendulkar was one of the heroes of India’s victory with 482 runs in the tournament, including 2 hundreds.
Sachin has aggregated 523 runs in 1996 and 673 runs in 2003 World Cups. No one could forget his brutal assault on Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar in the 2003 World Cup in South Africa. He certainly deserves a place in any All-time World XI, more so in this elite team. Tendulkar is one of the openers in this team.
Adam Gilchrist is Australia’s best ever wicket-keeper batsman. Along with Matthew Hayden, he formed a formidable opening partnership for Australia. Gilchrist was one of the few players who were part of three World Cup-winning teams.
Gilchrist scored 408 runs in World Cup 2003 at a strike rate of 105. He was even better in the next World Cup in 2007, with 453 runs at a strike rate of 104. In the final of World Cup 2007, Gilchrist scored an incredible 149 runs off 104 balls which took the wind out of the Sri Lankan’s sail.
Adam Gilchrist is the second opener and wicket-keeper in this team.
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