Sportskeeda Cricket Awards 2017: ODI team of the year
Reigning World Champions Australia endured a wretched run in 2017 despite starting the year with a 4-1 series win over Pakistan. Sri Lanka endured a 12-game losing streak in ODIs and despite their progress to the semi-final of the Champions Trophy, Bangladesh won just four matches in the calendar year.
As a result, those three teams don't make it into the top five ODI teams of the calendar year. Nor do West Indies, who won just three matches. That makes the job of finding the top five teams relatively straightforward, it will still be interesting to see who claims top spot for the calendar year.
Here are the top five ODI teams of the year:
#5 New Zealand
Although they didn't qualify for the Champions Trophy semi-final, it took a monumental effort from Bangladesh to deny them that chance. Despite that, they finished the year with the fifth-best win percentage of any side in the calendar year, winning more than double the matches as Australia did.
They began the year with two wins over Australia at home. And just narrowly missed out to South Africa 3-2 in a thrilling five-match ODI series. After beating Ireland and Bangladesh in the build-up to the Champions Trophy, the Black caps finished the tournament without a win.
After that, they took a 1-0 lead in the series against India before Virat Kohli's side came back to win the series. They ended the year by whitewashing West Indies and that meant that they started and ended the year whitewashes at home.
