Team of the Group Round; Match 2

Brendon McCullum ‘ blistering 77 runs off 39 balls against England demonstrate how to lead from the front, so the Kiwi skipper is ideal to open and captain the Team of the Group Round: Match 2. He is paired with Shaker Dhawan, who hit 137 runs to contribute in the India’ huge victory against South Africa.

Man of the Matches, both Mahela Jayawardene and Shakib Al Hasan were pivotal in Afghanistan’ consecutive defeats. The Sri Lankan scored a century and Bangladesh all rounder scored important 76 runs besides getting 2 wickets against the World Cup’ debutant to guide their teams to victories.

All rounder SC Williams contributed with 76 runs and 2 wickets in Zimbabwe’ win against UAE. Kiwi handy man Anderson again chipped in important 11 runs in chasing a low target against Scotland plus his 2 wickets earn him a place in this team. Similarly Andre Russell smashed 42 runs off 17 balls against strong Pakistan’ bowling attack and also picked 3 wickets leading West Indies to bring back in the event.

Scottish wicket keeper Matthew Cross caught four top order Kiwi batsmen behind the stumps and created severe troubles for the Black Caps to chase a low target.

In the spin department Ravichandran Ashwin and  Daniel Vettori both took equal wickets but the Indian defeated his Kiwi counterpart to get a place in this team because his 3-wicket haul was against a much stronger South African team.              

Tim Southee set a new World Cup record of best bowling by getting 7 wickets and the pacer forms a formidable pace attack here together with West Indies Jerome Taylor who ripped apart Pakistan top order very quickly in his 3 wicket haul.