Cricket Australia pick their ‘Controversial’ Playing XI of group stage of ODI World Cup 2023

The group stage of the ODI World Cup 2023 has come to an end with the completion of the match between India and Netherlands in M Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru. India won the match and extended their winning streak to 9 wins in a row. The four semifinalists and the teams remaining in the tournament are India, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

The focus has now shifted to the Knockouts. With that, the teams of the group stage of the ODI World Cup 2023 are being picked by fans, experts, and former cricketers. Some of the players in those teams are pretty obvious and are in the expected lines. But some of the teams have turned out to be controversial due to some unexpected picks and misses.

One such list has been Cricket Australia’s team of the group stage of the tournament. The Playing XI of their list had the likes of Quinton De Kock, David Warner, Rachin Ravindra, Virat Kohli (C), Aiden Markram, Glenn Maxwell, Marco Jansen, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Adam Zampa, and Jasprit Bumrah. They announced Dilshan Madushanka as the 12th man of their team.

Cricket Australia exclude Rohit Sharma from their team 

While the team of Cricket Australia is filled with very good performers, some of them being obvious ones, the most shocking leave has been that of Rohit Sharma. The Indian captain was left out by them, at the cost of David Warner. The move has received huge flak from the fans, who argued that Rohit must walk into the side given his brilliant captaincy and batting performance till this point in the tournament.

The argument of the fans is fair as well. Sharma is the fourth highest run scorer in the tournament and has not lost a match yet. Rohit has more runs, better batting average, better batting strike rate, equal number of fifty plus scores, more boundaries, and sixes than Warner in the tournament. Yet, Warner was picked ahead of Rohit. In the absence of Rohit, Virat was made the captain of the side.