Dravid named captain of Test Team of the Year

Rahul Dravid has been named captain of the World Team of the Year, an award to recognise the best international players of the last 12 months, at the annual ICC Awards ceremony in Mumbai.

Six teams are represented in the 12-man line-up, four of which - Ricky Ponting, Andrew Flintoff, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath - were also named in the World Test Team of the Year in 2005. "It feels great to be back here, accepting an ICC Award," Dravid said. "It's the second time I have got into this team and it is a huge honour and privilege. I think to lead this time would be a pretty easy job - you would just have to throw the ball to someone and they would do the rest.

"We had some very good results for a while," Dravid said of India's achievements in the past 12 months, "and we have stumbled since then a little so the upcoming tour to South Africa will be a great opportunity to get things back on track. I am a little disappointed that we are not in the final of the ICC Champions Trophy - it would be great to be feeling nervous ahead of that final on Sunday."

The team was chosen by a specially appointed expert panel made up of Sunil Gavaskar, Ian Healy, Allan Donald, Waqar Younis and Arjuna Ranatunga.

World Test Team of the Year 2006 (in batting order):
1 Matthew Hayden (Australia), 2 Michael Hussey (Australia), 3 Ricky Ponting (Australia), 4 Rahul Dravid (India, capt), 5 Mohammad Yousuf (Pakistan), 6 Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka, wk), 7 Andrew Flintoff (England), 8 Shane Warne (Australia), 9 Makhaya Ntini (South Africa), 10 Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka), 11 Glenn McGrath (Australia), 12 Brett Lee (Australia)