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Test cricket, T20 cricket and One-Day cricket may be parts of the same sport but do definitely require a different skill set and a whole new level of temperament for attaining success. But then, while we have seen in the past several days cricketers adapting so brilliantly to the one day format besides their natural inclinations towards Test cricket- think of Chanderpaul, Dravid, McCullum, Hayden, Lee, Younis Khan, Dhoni, Sangakkara, Mahela and the list is endless- there also happen to be several promient names in the game who couldn't get around to become one day mainstays.
What's worst or disappointing should one note is that several quality and reputable Test names never got around to play even one solitary world cup game. That told, while we have the well established successes, who are the 5 Famous cricketers who never played a World Cup match? Let us find out here-
Let’s take a look at cricketers who never got the chance to play in a World Cup match:
1. Justin Langer (Australia)
A formidable and technically sound Australian batter with north of 7600 Test match runs, Justin Langer unfortunately happens to be among the 5 famous cricketers who never played a world cup match.
Someone whose Test best score at 250 still commands respect as does the man himself, it could be argued that it was so hard to break into the Australian white-ball team back in the days with the likes of Hayden, Lee, Warne, the Waugh brothers in the side that Langer simply couldn't become a one day phenomenon.
However, he played 8 one dayers for his team.
2. Sir Alastair Cook (England)
Not many English batters have risen like a mighty fine force in the game's longest and most arduous format and not all have the kind of respect that the great Sir Alastair Cook holds. Even today, several years since his retirement!
But then not many have gone on to amass 12400 Test runs and not many have played 161 Test matches (which translated to 291 innings).
But what most fans and critics fail to notice is just how many runs Cook, a scorer of 33 hundreds scored, in limited overs cricket. And his is a respectable tally of 3200 runs from 92 games.
And yet, Sir Cook happens to be among the 5 famous cricketers who never played a world cup match.
How many of us find that disappointing?
3. Ishant Sharma (India)
A world-class world quality fast bowler and someone who in the post-Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh era really took up the mantle of being a primal force with the red ball for India, Ishant Sharma couldn't really make it that big in the shorter formats of the game.
For someone who made a reputation for putting even the most established world-beating batters stumble with discomfort, whether Ricky Ponting, Marlon Samuels and even Steve Smith, it's a bit of a shame that the tall Delhi-born bowler happens to be among the 5 famous cricketers who never played a world cup match.
What's rather surprising is that despite playing 80 odd one dayers for India, from which he took 115 scalps, Ishant never played a single World Cup contest.
4. VVS Laxman (India)
The great VVS Laxman made record books soar with this gritty and classy 281 back in 2001-02 season thanks to displaying a majestic kind of batting that India hadn't seen on too many occasions in the game's longest format which is when the Kolkata heroics changed the narrative once and for all.
But even as the great Indian batter made loads of runs in Tests and even struck a one day century, VVS Laxman couldn't really solidify his position in the limited overs side, whether playing under Ganguly's captaincy or as seen later, during Dhoni's reign.
Despite playing no fewer than 86 one dayers for India and scoring north of 2300 runs in them, VVS Laxman never played a single World Cup contest. In the 2011 era, he was still fighting fit but by then it had been 5 years since his last one day appearance (2006).
5. Cheteshwar Pujara (India)
The scariest or most worrying part about being Cheteshwar Pujara is that despite all that he's done for Team India in Test colours, scoring north of 7,000 runs, despite being one of the mainstays of the batting in the post-Dravid era and despite scoring loads of runs in difficult conditions such as Australia, he may have already played his last ever Test match.
That's when he's scored multiple centuries in domestic first-class cricket and even a triple hundred being Saurashtra's beacon of batting brilliance.
But who can blame anyone else other than Cheteshwar Pujara given his dwindling returns as seen in the last couple of seasons where he formed part of the Test line up.
That said perhaps it's hardly surprising that Pujara never made it to any ODI World Cup squad or any T20I side for India, given just how competitive and brilliant talents more suited to the formats had already become regulars in those forms.
