Best XI Of Cricket World Cup 2015 Quarter Finals

Best XI Of Cricket World Cup 2015 Quarter Finals: Now that the Quarter Finals (QFs) of the World Cup 2015 are over, we have seen some wonderful performances in the four matches. double Centuries, centuries, extraordinary bowling and some great bowling spells everything were on showcase in the QFs.

Here is our best XI of the QFs:

1. Rohit Sharma (India)

A crucial century in the game against Bangladesh took India over 300, from a stage where they were forced to look at around 250. Rohit Sharma’s 137 was one of the best examples of how to build an innings in an ODI match. It helped India beat Bangladesh with a convincing margin.

Quinton de Kock (SA)

Quinton de Kock finally repaid all the faith the South African management has put in him playing him throughout the tournament despite being woefully out of form. He scored a cracking 78* against Sri Lanka to win the match for South Africa and qualifying for the semis. De Kock really hit his form in the match playing a fluent innings against both pace and spin.

2. Martin Guptill (NZ)

Martin Guptill hit a bashful 237* against the West Indies, the second highest score in ODIs and highest in World Cup history. This was the first 200 from a New Zealand batsman, which took West Indies totally out of the game, with Kiwis making 393/6. Guptill hit 11 sixes and 24 fours in his epic innings.

3. Steve Smith (Aus)

Steve Smith was the only batsman who looked confident against the fiery Pakistani bowling. He handled both the spinners and pace bowlers well, making a crucial 65 runs contributing to the Australian victory.

4. Shane Watson (Aus)

Shane Watson scored a brilliant and testing 64* against Pakistan, facing one of the best spells of pace bowling from Wahab Riaz. He faced bouncers, short balls to the face and what not from a fired Riaz who was bowling constantly at 149 kmph and above. But he persevered in adversity and finally took Australia to the win.

5. Suresh Raina (India)

Suresh Raina helped Rohit Sharma in gaining back the momentum and rebuilding the innings after India had lost 3 quick wickets adding 140 plus runs with Rohit to save India the blushes. Raina made 65 runs before getting out trying to force the pace of runs.

6. MS Dhoni (India) (Cap) (Wk.)

Though Dhoni didn’t do much with the bat, he makes it in the XI purely on the basis of his captaincy and wicket-keeping. He stifled the flow of runs with spinners despite Bangladesh being good players of spin. Dhoni’s strategic use of Suresh Raina as the backup was brilliant and his strategy to give short spells of 2-3 over to Shami and Yadav did the trick against the Bangla batsmen.

7. Wahab Riaz (Pakistan)

Wahab Riaz might have taken Pakistan in to the semi-finals if he had some support from his fielders and other bowlers. Riaz bowled 5-6 overs on the trot with pace, fire and intensity accounting for Michael Clarke and David Warner in that spell. He almost knocked the head of Shane Watson a couple of times in that spell, giving him stare downs and heckling him. But a dropped catch and no support from fellow pacers meant that Australia overhauled the Pakistani total of 215 easily.

8. Trent Boult (New Zealand)

Trent Boult destroyed West Indian top order in a continuous 10 over spell. He picked up the wickets of Johnston Charles, Marlon Samuels, Simmons and dangerous Ramdin in that spell picking 4/44. Boult just didn’t give Windies any chance to even think about chasing 393 runs.

9. Mitchell Starc (Australia)

Mitchell Starc picked 2 wickets against Pakistan giving vital support to Josh Hazlewood who picked up 4 wickets. Starc roughed up the Pakistani batsmen with some serious pace and bounce which rattled them enough to throw their wickets to a much slower Hazlewood.

10. Imran Tahir (South Africa)

Imran Tahir has proved to be the trump card of the Proteas game plan picking 4/26 against Sri Lankans. Tahir bamboozled the Sri Lankans, who mind you play spin very well and tied them down and eventually bowling them out for 133 runs.

Josh Hazlewood (Australia)

Josh Hazlewood picked 4 wickets against Pakistan, picking up wickets of a rattled batting line-up. Johnson and Starc had already bounced and yorked the Pakistani batsmen enough for them to try and hit Hazlewood for runs. But his McGrath like accuracy and swing bowling led the batsmen to gift him wickets instead.

11. Umesh Yadav (India)

Umesh Yadav took his career best 4/31 against Bangladesh, helping India win the QFs by a big margin. He used pace and bounce to rattle the Bangla batting, taking wickets of Tamim, Mushfiqur, Sabbir and Rubel Hossain.

*All stats updated till 21 March 2015