Best XI of the 2015 Cricket World Cup group stage

It’s a team skippers fantasize about, a team you wish made up your fantasy line-up. But then again, it is really hard to predict who the heroes will be at a major tournament. Some heroes turn up, some hibernate, while some others completely fizzle out.Here, we pick the Best XI of the group stage from the 2015 World Cup. Remember, this is a team not necessarily of the top XI players; instead, it is a team that where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. There are the best openers, the best finishers, the best seam bowlers, the best spinners; that would make for one hell of a team, we are sure!

#1 Brendon McCullum

He has 257 runs at an average of 42.83 while opening the innings. A lot of openers have more runs than him – Hashim Amla, David Warner and Tillakaratne Dilshan. Yet, McCullum will make it to the Team of the World Cup any day because his three half centuries came against the three big teams – Sri Lanka, England and Australia.

His strike-rate of 187.59 is only marginally next to that of Glenn Maxwell, who has the same number of runs as him. That kind of strike-rate at the start of the innings against world class bowlers can set the foundation up, give teams the momentum and help them through tough chases. Not to mention, he is a breathtaking fielder, who will easily pull couple of miracles every match.