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Brendan Taylor

ZIMBABWE’S stand-in captain at the 2015 ICC World Cup, Brendan Taylor, had been included in the Team of the Tournament, which was hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

Taylor was one of the top performers at the tournament where Zimbabwe crashed out at the group stage.

This was despite a good show by the 29-year old batsman who struck two centuries and a half ton in the six group matches before announcing his retirement from international cricket.

Taylor smashed back-to-back centuries in the last two games in Group B when he scored 121 against Ireland and 138 against India in the last match.

He also scored 50 against Pakistan to emerge the fourth highest run scorer at the tournament.

A panel set up by the ICC named Taylor, who finished with 433 runs in six matches, as the 12th man for the team.

New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum was chosen to lead the side.

Announcing the side, the ICC said in a news release on Monday “McCullum was chosen as the captain following his aggressive, innovative and inspirational leadership during the 44-day tournament that was the cornerstone of his team’s progression to the final where it lost to Australia by seven wickets.”

McCullum scored 328 runs in nine matches with four half-centuries, at a strike-rate of 188.50.

The 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup squad includes four other New Zealanders — Corey Anderson, Trent Boult, Martin Guptill and Daniel Vettori — three Australians in Glenn Maxwell, Steven Smith and Mitchell Starc, two South Africans AB de Villiers and Morne Morkel and with Sri Lanka wicketkeeper-batsman Kumar Sangakkara also in that role.

“The panel had an extremely difficult choice of selecting a 12-member squad at the back of an outstanding tournament, highlighted by some eye-catching individual performances including two double-centuries, 38 centuries, two hat-tricks and 28 four-wicket hauls,” ICC General Manager (Cricket), Geoff Allardice, said.

The 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup

team in batting order:

1 Brendon McCullum, New Zealand (captain)

2 Martin Guptill, New Zealand

3 Kumar Sangakkara, Sri Lanka (wicketkeeper)

4 Steven Smith, Australia

5 AB de Villiers, South Africa

6 Glenn Maxwell, Australia

7 Corey Anderson, New Zealand

8 Daniel Vettori, New Zealand

9 Mitchell Starc, Australia

10 Trent Boult, New Zealand

11 Morne Morkel, South Africa

12 Brendan Taylor, Zimbabwe (12th man) — ZimCricket/Sports Reporter