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

#1 Sir Alastair Cook

Sir Cook in action against India in 2014

Current World Champions England's highest Test runs scorer and highest Test century getter could never get a proper look-in the ODI side.

It is often said that left-handers look more elegant to the eyes than right-handers. Brian Lara, Sourav Ganguly, Kumar Sangakkara, Clive Lloyd and Mark Taylor before them are certainly examples that prove that age-old adage. Sir Cook's technique and shot-making, however, was not the most appealing to the Cricket purist. What it was was effective, well, at least in Test Matches.

Analysis of ODI Career: Four months after having made his successful debut against India at Nagpur in 2006, he debuted in ODIs at Lancashire's Old Trafford Stadium in Manchester and played just one more ODI before the 2007 World Cup with scores of 39 and 41.

Post the showpiece event in 2007, he was then given an extended run in the English ODI side throughout 2007 and 2008, scoring a century against India at Southampton but mostly failing to kick on from there. He was then dropped and then inducted in the team a year and a half later in 2010 against Bangladesh. He performed well, scoring 156 runs in 172 balls in three innings with two half-centuries.

Back in the side post the 2011 tournament, Sir Cook hit a century in only his second comeback match against Sri Lanka at Lord's. He made consecutive centuries on spin-friendly slow-and low pitches in Abu Dhabi against Pakistan in February 2012 and added another against the West Indies in June of the same year. He was then made captain and given another extended run in the ODI team throughout 2013 and 2014.

Why he missed out on a World Cup match: Just as in the case of Justin Langer (in 1996) and VVS Laxman (in 1999), he was thought to be too inexperienced to be selected for the 2007 World Cup having played only two ODIs. He was mysteriously dropped from the side despite having scored runs at a strike rate of almost 90 and an average of 52 (albeit the sample size was only 3 matches) against Bangladesh and missed out on the 2011 World Cup. Having been the captain in the build-up to the 2015 World Cup, he was controversially stripped of the captaincy and dropped from the side in late 2014, just a couple of months before the 2015 World Cup.