Champions Trophy: Kohli headlines six Indians in ICC's 'Team of the Tournament'

The talismanic Virat Kohli was the biggest name among six Indian players picked in the 12member Team of the Tournament for the Champions TrophyIndia beat New Zealand by four wickets in the final here on Sunday to win the tournament for the third time after 2002 joint winners and 2013 India have been runnersup twice in 2000 and 2017Besides Kohli Shreyas Iyer wicketkeeperbatter KL Rahul mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy and pacer Mohammed Shami featured in the playing XI while allrounder Axar Patel was named the 12th manThe Black Caps have four members of their squad making the team including Player of the Tournament Rachin Ravindra with Mitchell Santner being named captainTwo players from Afghanistan also made the cut after the Asian nation won their firstever ICC Mens Champions Trophy match in their debut appearanceAt the top of the order Ravindra was an expected selection after he scored two centuries and topped the runscoring charts with 263His knock of 112 against Bangladesh was instrumental in seeing New Zealand over the line and his 108 in the semifinal against South Africa showed he is dangerous wherever he batsRavindra was joined by Ibrahim Zadran at the top of the order The 23yearold Afghan more than left his mark on the tournament playing a brilliant knock of 177 the highestever Champions Trophy score against England in the group stageIndias Kohli slots in at number three after he finished fifth in the runscoring charts with 218 at an average of 5450Kohli made a memorable unbeaten century in his sides groupstage win over Pakistan and a crucial 84 in the semifinal win over world champions AustraliaTeammates Shreyas and Rahul join him in the middleorder after impressive tournamentsIyer was Indias top runscorer in the tournament with two halfcenturies helping him to 243 runs in total while Rahul finished with an average of 140 thanks to unbeaten knocks of 42 and 34 in the semifinal and final respectivelyNew Zealands Glenn Phillips is selected at number six after a brilliant performance with the bat and in the fieldPhillips diving onehanded catch to dismiss Shubman Gill in the final was one of three iconic takes across the tournament while the 28yearold scored one half century against Pakistan and took two wickets against South Africa in the semifinal to go alongside an unbeaten 49Azmatullah Omarzai is the second Afghan named in the team The fastbowling allrounder had a fantastic tournament with both bat and ball finishing with seven wickets at 20 and 126 runs at 4200Santner is named as team captain after finishing the tournament with nine wickets iquest the joint second iquest but more importantly picked them at crucial timesHis knack of taking potential gamechanging wickets was evident in the final With the help of a sublime Phillips catch he removed Gill and followed it up with the wicket of IyerIndias Shami capped a successful return from injury by being selected after finishing with nine wicketsMatt Henry unfortunately missed the final due to a shoulder injury he picked up during New Zealands semifinal win over South Africa but still finished as the tournaments leading wickettaker with 10 scalps at 1670The team is completed by Chakravarthy who took nine wickets in just three matchesHe bowled his full allocation in all the three matches he playedWith agency inputs