Former Indian fast bowler and cricket expert Ashish Nehra picked his best XI of the IPL 2020 season. This season has seen a number of players step up and take full advantage of the platform to showcase their talent. But Ashish Nehra used his cricketing knowledge to pick XI most consistent performers of the season. A few eyebrows were raised as he left out India and Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli.
Ashish Nehra believes Suryakumar Yadav had more impact in IPL 2020 than Virat Kohli
Ashish Nehra picked the opening combination of Kings XI Punjab skipper KL Rahul and Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper David Warner. KL Rahul was the leading run-scorer of the tournament with 670 runs and won the Orange Cap. Warner was effective towards the end of IPL 2020 season and helped his team make it to the playoffs. At No.3, instead of going with arguably India’s best batsman Virat Kohli, Ashish Nehra picked Suryakumar Yadav from the Mumbai Indians. Yadav had a brilliant IPL 2020 where he scored 480 runs from 16 games.
“At Number 3, I am not choosing Virat Kohli. It’s not that he has not scored runs but the impact runs were scored by Suryakumar Yadav, so I will keep him at Number 3,” said Nehra in a conversation with Star Sports.
At No.4, Ashish Nehra picked RCB’s AB de Villiers as he is an impact player and can turn the match on its head on any given day. AT No.5 and No.6, Nehra picked the Mumbai Indians duo of Ishan Kishan and Hardik Pandya respectively. Kishan was MI’s highest run-scorer this season with 516 runs while Hardik provided strong finishes to the MI batting innings, proving to be the ideal finisher.
After such a strong middle-order, Nehra picked Jofra Archer and Rashid Khan at the next two spots as they both have the all-round ability that would give his XI extra depth in the batting. Yuzvendra Chahal and Jasprit Bumrah were the next two players that made it to Nehra’s XI due to their fantastic performances this season. In the final spot, Nehra said there could be anyone between Mohammed Shami and Ravichandran Ashwin depending on the pitch conditions.
