Former Pakistan Star Pacer, ‘Shoaib Akhtar’ has recently cherry-picked his All-time IPL playing XI, where he opted for MS Dhoni as a skipper over Virat Kohli and five-time trophy winner Rohit Sharma. The actual team made by Shoaib Akhtar has Caribbean Chris Gayle and Indian Rohit Sharma as the two openers for the start.
“Yes, he is not going through a bad phase but that does not mean he is not a great player”.
Later, at number 3, he opted for Virat Kohli instead of his current dark relations with the batting form. Akhtar said in a conversation with Sportskeeda, “At no. 3 my pick would be Virat Kohli. Yes, he is not going through a bad phase but that does not mean he is not a great player. He has scored so many runs in the IPL”.
For the middle-order batting position, he chose AB De Villiers, Andre Russell and Kieron Pollard for no 4, 5 & 6 respectively. At number 7, Akhtar played the most surprising move by making MS Dhoni the skipper and also the finisher of the team. He said, On no. 7, I would pick MS Dhoni. He is a finisher, he is a hard-hitter too. He is also the captain. He is the leader of the team”.
In the bowling department, Shoaib Akhtar has opted to go with the vintage category of bowlers, for the spin unit he has selected Afghan leggie Rashid Khan and Harbhajan Singh at no 8 & 9. And the Australian & Sri-Lankan legends Brett Lee – Lasith Malinga as the two prime fast bowlers at the last two positions of no 10 and 11. The most important key in his opted Playing-XI was the plucking of vintage Dhoni as the skipper, especially over the best of Rohit Sharma, who has successfully led his side Mumbai Indians in the most five seasons of the Indian Premier League.
