2021 was a blockbuster year for Test cricket fans as some of the best and the most thrilling test matches were played this year. From India’s historic series win against Australia at the Gabba to Australia thrashing England in the Ashes, 2021 was a complete delight. With that, we also saw some phenomenal individual performances throughout the year which need to be appreciated. Cricket Australia have thus announced their Test XI of the year for 2021 and what a team it is !
Let us first take a look at the playing XI:-
- ROHIT SHARMA
- DIMUTH KARUNARATNE
- MARNUS LABUSCHAGNE
- JOE ROOT
- FAWAD ALAM
- RISHABH PANT (WK)
- KYLE JAMIESON
- RAVICHANDRAN ASHWIN
- AXAR PATEL
- HASAN ALI
- SHAHEEN SHAH AFRIDI
As we can see, they have included only 1 Australian player in the team (Marnus Labuschagne) while there are as many as 4 India players. Let us take a look at the nation-wise representation in Cricket Australia’s selected playing XI.
- India – 4
- Pakistan – 3
- New Zealand – 1
- Australia – 1
- Sri Lanka – 1
- England – 1
It can be clearly inferred that the representation of the countries from the Indian subcontinent is much higher than the other nations. It might simply be attributed to the fact that these nations played much more matches this year.
However, players like Kane Williamson and James Anderson missing out on the list while Hasan Ali got a spot, is rather controversial.