Harsha Bhogle picks his 2018 Test XI

As 2018 draws to an end, the cricketing world looks back at this fascinating year to recollect events and analyze the game as it went through the year. It's just that time of the year.

India's own cricket analyst and commentator, Harsha Bhogle has picked his Test XI of the year through a vlog series for Cricbuzz which also included the ODI and T20 XIs of the year.

Totally unbiased and going only with the numbers and the skillset, Bhogle picked the squad with the intention of choosing players who made it big only this year. Goodwill or reputation didn't bring a player into the team if there were no numbers to show.

Here's the world Test XI picked by Harsha Bhogle for 2018.

Note: Statistics in this article are as of 28th December 2018

#1 Tom Latham (New Zealand)

Bhogle, in his vlog, himself states that 2018 was one of the worst years in cricket history for opening partnerships. Openers all around the world had a subdued season barring 2-3 of them, and one of them being this southpaw from New Zealand.

Tom Latham had a pretty decent year with the bat but his last two Tests of the year against Sri Lanka improved his numbers significantly. He recorded 658 runs in seven Tests at 59.81 with a highest score of 264* and two centuries.

#2 Dimuth Karunaratne (SL)

This was another horrid year for Sri Lanka in international Cricket but they had a few players who delivered, and Dimuth Karunaratne was one of them.

The southpaw managed to score at an average of 46 which was enough to be much better than most of the regular openers as he made the cut even after scoring only a solitary 100 during the whole year. He recorded 743 runs in nine Test matches.