Harsha Bhogle reveals T20I Team of the Year 2024, excludes Kohli, Rohit, and Suryakumar

Recently, renowned analyst Harsha Bhogle revealed his 2024 T20I side of the year. Five Indian players, two West Indians, and one player each from Australia, England, South Africa, and Afghanistan made up Bhogle’s team’s demographic composition.

Travis Head and Phil Salt are two aggressive batters that Bhogle selected. So far, Head’s 2024 has been vital. In 15 T20Is in 2024, the Australian southpaw amassed 539 runs. In contrast, Salt scored 467 runs in 17 Twenty20 Internationals. Unexpectedly, he omitted former T20I captain Rohit Sharma and cricketing mainstay Virat Kohli.

“Travis Head had a tremendous white-ball season. It makes a huge difference that he is a left-hander. He destroyed powerplays and frequently reached 50 more than any other player in the powerplay. “Travis Head had a fantastic white-ball season,” Bhogle said.

“Then there’s another—I’m referring to Phil Salt—who played in the IPL for KKR but excelled elsewhere. Every time Phil Salt and Travis Head batted, there was a feeling of anticipation. “You have to destroy the powerplay and then build after that, the way the T20 game is going,” he said.

Suryakumar Yadav is left off of Harsha BhogleT20I squad.

In a daring move, he once again left out Suryakumar Yadav, who has long been the best batter in the world, when selecting his middle order batsmen. Bhogle proceeded to select Heinrich Klaasen, Nicholas Pooran, and Sanju Samson for various reasons. Bhogle called Pooran one of the top middle-order batsmen at the moment, but he commended Samson’s dynamism in batting wherever the team wanted him to. Klaasen was chosen by the analyst before Tristan Stubbs.

“Here’s something interesting: there aren’t many options, and I have big batters at 3-4-5. I believe that Nicholas Pooran is currently one of the best middle-order players, thus my number four picked himself. Although it would be easy to rank him at number three, I believe he plays the middle overs so brilliantly that Nicholas Pooran is my number four. Heinrich Klaasen is someone that I simply adore seeing, not only for Nicholas Pooran. He is just ahead of Tristan Stubbs as my top five.

Sanju Samson is on my squad at number three because he can be an opener or a number three. I simply adore observing him. You can count on an audience right away if you have Head, Salt, and Sanju Samson. However, Sanju Samson has had an unusual year,” he continued.

Bhogle went ahead and included Andre Russell and Hardik Pandya as seam-bowling options in his team. The ferocious utility that Hardik offers with the bat is well known. Bhogle praised Russell’s intense ball-striking prowess in particular.

“At six and seven, I want seam-bowling all-rounders.” Axar Patel is one of the few spin-bowling all-rounders available for those positions. So, of the three seam-bowling all-rounders I had to pick between—Andre Russell, Marcus Stoinis, and Hardik Pandya—I looked at two. Andre Russell is brave at seven, in my opinion. If he enters with 10 balls remaining, he can alter a game in that brief amount of time, regardless of the target. Additionally, he has increased his bowling, and although he can be costly, you really only need him to bowl two overs,” Bhogle continued.

Bhogle proceeded with the spin combination of Varun Chakravarthy and Rashid Khan as the specialist bowlers. However, there were no off-spinners. Arshdeep Singh and Jasprit Bumrah, the T20 World Cup 2024’s joint-highest and second-highest wicket-takers, were the two true pacers that Bhogle selected.