Harsha Bhogle tweets wonder stat for picking KL Rahul over Babar Azam in T20I side of 2019

The year 2019 is about to end and there are many cricketing pundits who have come up with their best playing XI of the year in different formats. The latest to join this list is Indian commentator Harsha Bhogle, who picked his team of the year in the shortest format of the game. However, the notable exclusion of the world's top-ranked batsman in T20Is and Pakistan's T20I skipper Babar Azam in favour of India opener KL Rahul is what has grabbed many eyeballs.

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However, Bhogle has now come up with justification about the exclusion of the right-hander from his playing XI of the year. Babar Azam, who made his T20I debut for Pakistan in 2016, has emerged as one of the prolific T20I batsmen across the globe. So far, he has represented Pakistan in 36 games in which he has amassed 1406 runs at a decent strike rate of 127.6 with 12 half-centuries. In the year 2019, he muscled 374 runs in 10 games at a strike rate of 137 and is going to end the year as the No. 1 batsman in T20I rankings.

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Harsha Bhogle justified his team selection with a tweet.  According to Bhogle, if Babar was picked as the second opener, then he had to exclude Kieron Pollard or Andre Russell, which would have weakened his bowling attack. On the other hand, he had to pick a wicketkeeper as well because AB de Villiers had not kept since 2016, so it was not appropriate to pick him as the main wicketkeeper-batsman in the side. KL Rahul was the perfect solution for the dilemma because he had a great year in the shortest format. 

He gave a statistical review over the comparison of Babar Azam and KL Rahul in his latest Twitter post that read, “Babar: 39 innings, 1607 runs @45.91 & SR 139.61. KL Rahul 31 innings, 1262 runs, @50.48 and SR 141.95 + keeper. (Kept for Kings XI in 7 games in the IPL) Pollard 36/149. Russell 38/182. AB last kept 3 yrs ago except as stand-in when de Kock was injured in a test match.”

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Harsha Bhogle's tweet

Harsha Bhogle’s T20 XI of the year 2019: David Warner, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell, Mohammad Nabi, Chris Jordan, Deepak Chahar, Lasith Malinga, Imran Tahir.

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