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

year 2019 is about to end and re are many cricketing pundits who have come up with ir best playing XI of year in different formats. latest to join this list is Indian commentator Harsha Bhogle, who picked his team of year in shortest format of game. However, table exclusion of  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 w come up with justification about exclusion of right-hander from his playing XI of year. Babar Azam, who made his T20I debut for Pakistan in 2016, has emerged as one of prolific T20I batsmen across 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 year 2019, he muscled 374 runs in 10 games at a strike rate of 137 and is going to end year as . 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 second opener, n he had to exclude Kieron Pollard or Andre Russell, which would have weakened his bowling attack. On or hand, he had to pick a wicketkeeper as well because AB de Villiers had t kept since 2016, so it was t appropriate to pick him as main wicketkeeper-batsman in side. KL Rahul was perfect solution for dilemma because he had a great year in shortest format. 

He gave a statistical review over 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 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 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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