Babar Azam picks his India-Pakistan T20 XI

The Pakistan white ball captain and one of the leading batsman in the world cricket in Babar Azam picked an India-Pakistan combined T20 XI in his recent chat session with cricbuzz hosted by the ace broadcaster in Harsha Bhogle.

Babar Azam is the only batsman in the world to be ranked inside the top 5 of the ICC rankings in all the 3 formats of the game. He has earned the reputation as the most consistent player in the world and has been the mainstay of the Pakistan batting line up for the past 2 years.

No place for KL Rahul!

India’s highest ranked batsman in the shortest format of the game and the newest wicket keeper of the team and the captain of the Kings XI Punjab in KL Rahul did not find a place in the XI. His record in T20Is is unbelievable and he has never averaged below 35 in a calendar year. He would walk into any team in the world at the moment but Babar Azam didn’t pick KL Rahul in his team. He had himself and the Indian vice captain in Rohit Sharma as the openers of the team followed by the Indian captain Virat Kohli at number 3.

The former Pakistan captain in Shoaib Malik and the former world cup winning captain for India in MS Dhoni will be manning the middle order of the team at #4 and #5. The veteran batsman in MS Dhoni will also be the keeper of the team.

7 bowling options!

The team has Hardik Pandya and Shadab Khan as the 2 all rounders followed by 4 bowlers in Kuldeep Yadav, Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Amir and Jasprit Bumrah. The team as a whole have 7 bowling options including Shoaib Malik which is a luxury for any captain to have in a T20 game.

Babar Azam’s India-Pakistan combined T20I XI.

Rohit Sharma, Babar Azam, Virat Kohli, Shoaib Malik, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Afridi, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Amir, Kuldeep Yadav.