ODI Team of the Year: Who makes the cut in our 2020 XI?

At the end of a year disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, The Cricketer select its men's ODI team of the year

Aaron Finch - 13 matches, 673 runs, batting average 56.08, 2 hundreds, 5 fifties

Australia’s white-ball captain has enjoyed another fine year in ODI cricket.

Finch began the year with an unbeaten century in Mumbai in a 10-wicket win over India, before bookending 2020 with 249 runs in three games against the same opposition, this time on home soil. No one in the world hit more than his 79 boundaries.

KL Rahul (wk) - 9 matches, 443 runs, batting average 55.37, 1 hundred, 3 fifties

Only Alex Carey and Shai Hope affected more dismissals as wicketkeeper than Rahul in ODIs, though the Indian walks into this side mainly for his batting.

Just four men made more ODI runs over the course of 2020. His personal peak came in defeat, hitting a fine hundred against New Zealand at Mount Maunganui as wickets fell around him.

Steve Smith - 10 matches, 568 runs, batting average 63.11, 3 hundreds, 2 fifties

Either side of a pretty miserable Indian Premier League campaign with Rajasthan Royals, Smith had a terrific 50-over 2020.

A year-high 131 against India in January was followed by two further hundreds against Virat Kohli’s men in November. He missed Australia’s ODI series against England after being hit on the head while netting in the build-up.

^{KL Rahul hit a fine century against New Zealand before the coronavirus outbreak}

Virat Kohli - 9 matches, 431 runs, batting average 47.88, 5 fifties

A rare century-less year for the Indian great, who has been named as the ICC’s male cricketer of the decade to round off his 2020.

Knowing his relentlessness, however, a failure to convert scores of 51, 63, 78, 89 and 89 into hundreds will have rankled with Kohli, who captained his side to six defeats in nine ODIs. Still, the majority would be delighted to have his numbers.

Sam Billings - 6 matches, 315 runs, batting average 78.75, 1 hundred, 2 fifties

A real breakthrough year for the Kent captain as an international cricketer, who made a first England hundred five years after his debut. He took full advantage of the chances afforded to him, first in beating Ireland and then in the series defeat against Australia.

He began the summer by describing England’s white-ball unit as among the toughest to break into in world sport, and he will be under no illusions as to the challenge he faces in keeping his spot.

Glenn Maxwell - 6 matches, 353 runs, batting average 70.60, 1 hundred, 3 fifties

Was this the year that Australia perfected their use of a generational talent? A batting average of 70.6 and an accompanying strike rate of 145.26 would suggest so. His magnum opus came in a series-clinching 108 against England at Emirates Old Trafford.

Dead and buried at 73 for 5, Maxwell and Alex Carey put together a remarkable 212-run stand to drag their side to victory from nowhere. He finished the year thereafter with scores of 45, 63 and 59 – those innings using up just 91 balls between them.

^{This was a breakthrough year for Sam Billings as an ODI cricketer}

Chris Woakes - 5 matches, 129 runs, batting average 43, 1 fifty, 7 wickets, bowling average 27.71, economy 4.51

He only played five ODIs across the year but he finds himself in this side on the back of his bowling efforts in England’s series defeat against Australia.

He made an unbeaten half century for good measure in his final outing of 2020, while also hitting 40 against South Africa in February. But it was with the ball where he shone most brightly; his spell of 3 for 32 to win the second ODI against Australia was as skilful as they come, with both new and old ball.

Alzarri Joseph - 6 matches, 18 wickets, bowling average 14.72, economy 4.41

The West Indian seamer hasn’t played an ODI since March, but in the first three months of the year he caused utter carnage.

Only once in six games did he fail to take at least three wickets. In all, he picked up four scalps twice against Ireland and once against Sri Lanka, with three wickets coming in successive defeats against Sri Lanka.

Josh Hazlewood - 10 matches, 16 wickets, bowling average 30.81, economy 5

Every time Hazlewood ran in for Australia in white-ball cricket in 2020, it was difficult to understand quite why he missed out on World Cup selection a year earlier.

His mixture of control and skill with the new ball was as outrageous as it was predictable, given all that the world has seen of the seamer in Test cricket.

^{Alzarri Joseph was on fire for West Indies in the early part of 2020}

Adam Zampa - 13 matches, 27 wickets, bowling average 23.74, economy 5

A hugely talented leg-spinner who has come into his own in recent years. He edges out Adil Rashid, who also bowled beautifully through 2020, on wickets alone. Zampa has become Finch’s go-to man in the middle overs.

Among his ODI wickets in the last 12 months, he has accounted for Kane Williamson, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root and Shikhar Dhawan once each, Kohli, Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Rohit Sharma, Sam Billings and Jos Buttler twice and Eoin Morgan three times.

Lungi Ngidi - 4 matches, 12 wickets, bowling average 16.08, economy 5.67

Like Joseph, Ngidi’s ODI year began and ended before the coronavirus outbreak, with nine wickets in two matches against Australia and three in the preceding series against England.

A six-wicket haul in the second ODI against Finch’s side sealed a series win, including the scalps of David Warner, Smith, Marnus Labuschagne in an initial new-ball burst.

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