5 great players who never featured in a World Cup match and why

#2 VVS Laxman

VVS Laxman en route a century against Australia in 2004

In 2003-04 Australian tour, Sachin Tendulkar was going through a rather tedious batting patch. He was just not getting starts and when he did get a start, he was sure to be undone by his nemesis, well, not the Australian bowling attack but West Indian umpire Steve Bucknor. When the team reached Sydney, Tendulkar told his teammates that he just wasn't going to play the cover drive, one of his favourite shots and also the one to which he was getting out.

Tendulkar walked in to bat at the fall of Aakash Chopra's wicket at 128 for 2 and when Rahul Dravid fell to Jason Gillespie at 194, he was joined in the middle by the 'Very Very Special' Laxman. Tendulkar later said that it was a privilege to have the best spot in the stadium watching Laxman's innings of 167. Maybe Laxman was repaying the favour he had when he was the non-striker as Tendulkar was playing one of his most majestic innings at Sharjah against Australia, which later would become famous as the 'Desert Storm'.

Analysis of ODI Career: Laxman made his ODI debut in 1998 against Zimbabwe at Cuttack and was out for a duck. Interestingly, he was also out for a duck in his last ODI against South Africa at the Centurion. The 134 Test veteran could only muster a paltry 86 ODI appearances. What let him down in the shorter format was his reading of the game.

Whilst he could assess situations perfectly in Tests, he couldn't do the same in ODIs and as a result, he was given a sustained run in the team. Low strike rates in the early part of his career also didn't help him. In all, he scored 6 centuries, the last coming against Pakistan at Lahore and his highest ODI score is a 131 not out against Zimbabwe at Adelaide. He scored his four other centuries against Australia.

Why he missed out on a World Cup match: Just as in the case of Justin Langer, he was deemed to be too inexperienced to be selected for the 1999 World Cup having played only 7 matches, scoring just 62 runs in the process. Having been in good batting form in the lead up to the 2003 edition in South Africa, he was controversially overlooked with the team management opting for Dinesh Mongia instead. Captain Sourav Ganguly later admitted that it was a mistake to have not picked Laxman for the tournament. By the time the 2007 edition rolled along, unbeknownst at the time, Laxman had already played his last ODI for India. Unlike in 2003, he surely would have been relieved to have not been a part of the disastrous campaign in 2007!