Representing the national team in the prestigious World Cup tournament is a dream of every cricketer around the world. While many are lucky as they get an opportunity to play for their country in the grandest stage, there are many who even after giving the best of their ability couldn’t make it up to the World Cup tournaments.
There have been many cricketers, who are regarded as the greatest cricketers but have never played a single world cup.
Here, we bring you a list of 5 greatest cricketers who never played a world cup. Have a look:
1. Ishant Sharma:
Team India’s pacer Ishant Sharma made his International debut in the year 2007. He is currently one of the most experienced players in team India. He has endured his fair share of ups and downs during his glorious career playing for team India.
With his ability and accuracy, he has become one of the key players in the longest format of the game. However, despite being an asset for Team India in the longer format, he has failed to nail down a spot in India’s ODI set-up. This is one of the reasons why he is yet to play a World Cup.
India’s Test specialist Cheteshwar Pujara made his international debut in the year 2010 against Australia at Bengaluru. His brilliant performances have gained him the title of Rahul Dravid’s successor in the team.
Throughout his glorious career, he has been lauded for his amazing performances determination and technique, however, all these years, he failed to carry on with these traits in the ODI format of the game.
He has only played 5 ODIs and considering that he still has a few years of international cricket left in him, it is still very unlikely of him to feature in the coming World Cup tournament.
3. Justin Langer:
Justin Langer, one of Australia’s greatest cricketers in the longest format of the game and is the current coach of the team. However, throughout his glorious career, he failed to carry on with his form in the ODI format of the game.
He has only been a part of 8 ODIs, where he scored 180 runs at an average of 32. On the other hand, he has played 105 Test matches for the Australian cricket team and amassed 7696 runs at an average of 45.27.
Thus, despite being one of the greatest cricketers he couldn’t make it up for a single World Cup.
4. Sir Alastair Cook:
Alastair Cook made his International Test debut for England with an astonishing hundred against team India in Nagpur. Though he is still regarded as one of the greatest players to have played the longest format of the game, but he failed to continue with his skills in the ODI format.
He has played 92 ODIs but he could only muster 3204 runs at an average of 36.40. He was even made the skipper of the team for the ODI format, however, he was sacked from the position of the skipper just months before the ICC 2015 Cricket World Cup. Later after the tournament, he couldn’t make an appearance on a grand platform like that.
5. VVS Laxman:
The elegant right-handed former batsman of team India, VVS Laxman started his glorious cricketing career in the year 2001 against Australia, where he emerged out as the Guardian Angel for Team India as they were moving towards a humiliating defeat. Since then there was no turning back as he continued to weave his magic for team India.
Besides playing in the longest format of the game, VVS Laxman also played in ODI format, where he appeared on 86 occasions and scored 2338 runs at an average of 30.76.
He has achieved a lot playing for India, however, one feels bad for him as he couldn’t play a world cup match in his career.
