Virat Kohli, R Ashwin, the only Indian cricketers in Wisden Test Team of the Decade

Bengaluru, December 24: Virat Kohli and R Ashwin are the only Indian cricketers to find a place in the Wisden Test Team of the Decade. As the 2010s drew to a close, Wisden's Decade Review Panel picked the 11 best players of the last 10 years.

Apart from Kohli and Ashwin, the XI was dominated by cricketers from England, Australia and South Africa, the strong teams of the decade gone by. Other Asian representative is former Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara, who has been selected as the wicketkeeper batsman.

1. Wisden's XI of the Decade

1. Alastair Cook, 2. David Warner, 3. Kumar Sangakkara, 4. Steve Smith, 5. Virat Kohli, 6. Ben Stokes, 7. AB de Villiers, 8. R Ashwin, 9. Dale Steyn, 10. Kagiso Rabada, 11. James Anderson.

2. Kohli's performance

The Indian skipper has been firmly entrenched as the No 1 Test batsman, as he recently overtook Australia's Steve Smith. Kohli had some stand out years in Test cricket especially from 2016 to 2018 where he scored so heavily and is also the only batsman who has a 50+ average in all three formats of the game. Currently, Kohli has 7202 runs from 84 Test matches at 55 and has made 27 hundreds and 22 fifties. However, Marnus Labuschange of Australia is the leading Test run-getter in 2019 and Mayank Agarwal is the top run-getter for India.

3. Ashwin's efforts

Since 2016, R Ashwin has undergone a remarkable change as a bowler as he exploited a long home season to the hilt to pile up records and wickets. So much was his devastation in the mid 2010s, the Tamil Nadu off-spinner was once labelled as the ‘Bradman of Bowlers.' Ashwin currently has 362 wickets from 70 Tests and recently equalled Sri Lankan legend Muttiah Muralitharan as the fastest bowler to reach 350 Test wickets.

4. Other prominent names in XI

South African fast bowler Dale Steyn, former England opener Alastair Cook and Australia's prolific Steve Smith are the other big names to find a place in the Wisden XI. Steyn, who is active in white ball format, was recently retired from Test cricket as was Cook. Smith had a tremendous Ashes series upon his return from a one-year ban for his involvement in the Cape Town ball tampering scandal.