Kieron Pollard picks his top 5 T20 players; names MS Dhoni as well

Pollard will captain the West Indies team in the T20 World Cup 2021.

Kieron Pollard, the West Indies captain is regarded as one of the greatest T20 cricketers in the world with over 10,000 runs and 300 wickets in the format. The burly Trinidadian will be leading the Windies team in the upcoming T20 World Cup 2021 to be played in UAE and Oman.

Recently, he was asked to pick his top five T20 players of all time in an interaction with the International Cricket Council (ICC). He ended up with five names that would give any hypothetical five-a-side T20 team a run for its money.

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His first name was teammate Chris Gayle, who is by far the greatest T20 player of all time and has been called the Bradman of T20. Gayle has 14261 runs at an average of 36.94 and a strike rate of 145.87, 22 centuries with a high score of 175* in 446 matches.

He was the first batsman to score a century in a T20I match, which came in the 2007 T20 World Cup tournament against the hosts South Africa. He was also part of the West Indies side that won the 2012 and 2016 World Cups.

The second name on Pollard’s list was Sri Lanka’s 2014 T20 World Cup-winning captain Lasith Malinga. With 390 wickets in 295 games at an average of under 20 and an economy of just over 7 in T20s, Malinga is truly a T20 great of all time. He is also the highest wicket-taker in T20Is with 107 scalps to his name.

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Another player from the Caribbean Pollard picked was Sunil Narine. In the shortest format of the game, Narine has the third-most wickets in the world, only bettered by Imran Tahir and Dwayne Bravo. Narine was one of the stand out players when West Indies won the T20 World Cup in 2012. He picked 9 wickets in 6 games at a miserly economy of 5.63.

The fourth name on Kieron Pollard’s list was that of India’s mercurial captain MS Dhoni. Dhoni was the captain of the Men in Blue when they won the T20 World Cup in 2007 in South Africa. With 185 catches and 84 stumpings, he tops the charts for most dismissals in T20 cricket. With the bat in hand, Dhoni has scored 6861 runs at an average of 38.54 and a strike rate of 134.82.

And last but not the least, Pollard picked himself as the fifth player.

"If it is my World XI T20, then I've got to be there, I have got to play. My records speak for itself when it comes to T20 cricket," said Pollard.

Pollard has 11223 runs at an average of 31.61 with a strike rate of 152.69 with one century and 56 half-centuries in T20 format. He also has 300 wickets at an economy of 8.21 with a best of 4/15.

(ICC inputs)