In the first five ICC Cricket World Cup, England didn’t perform as well as expected. They were runners-up three times in 1979, 1987, and 1992. Despite this, many of England’s best players, such as Graham Gooch, Geoffrey Boycott, Alec Stewart, Bob Willis, and Ian Botham, have competed in the World Cup.
However, there are also notable English cricketers who were capable of playing in the World Cup but never got the chance.
Here are five prominent English cricketers who never played in the World Cup.
5. Devon Malcolm
Devon Malcolm was a top Test bowler for England in the 1990s. He was known for his speed and skill, taking 128 wickets in Test matches, including five times getting five wickets in an innings. His best performance was taking 9 wickets for 57 runs against South Africa.
Malcolm took 249 wickets in List-A matches, but he didn’t bowl much for England in one-day cricket. He started well by taking 2 wickets for 19 runs against New Zealand in 1990. However, after a few matches that year, he didn’t play ODIs again until 1993 and missed the 1992 World Cup. Even though he played ODIs in 1993 and 1994 and took 3 wickets in a match twice, he wasn’t regularly chosen. Despite his good performance of taking 3 wickets for 41 runs against the West Indies, the selectors dropped Malcolm from the ODI team and never picked him again.
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4. Owais Shah
Owais Shah started playing One Day International cricket in 2001 and stopped in 2009. His time in the team was not steady. He began well by scoring fifty runs in his second ODI against Pakistan at Lord’s.
After that, he didn’t play regularly until January 2003 when he was dropped from the team. He didn’t get to play in the 2003 World Cup. By then, he had only scored 283 runs in 15 innings, with an average of 21.76 and two fifties.
In 2006, he returned to the national team because some players were injured. But he didn’t do well, scoring only 11 runs in three innings. He didn’t play again until the series against India. This meant he missed playing in the 2007 World Cup.
From 2007 to 2009, Shah performed well, scoring a century against India and 98 runs against South Africa in the 2009 Champions Trophy. However, his struggles in the ODI series against Australia just before the tournament jeopardized his place in the national team. He missed selection for the South Africa tour and Middlesex didn’t renew his contract after the 2010 season, ending his chances of playing in the 2011 World Cup and for the national team again.
Shah’s ODI career finished with 1834 runs, averaging 30.56, and he scored 12 fifties and one century.
3. Mark Butcher
Mark Butcher was a great cricket player for England in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He scored over 4000 runs in Test matches during his career, with 8 centuries and 23 fifties. Despite his success in Tests, he never played in One Day Internationals (ODIs), which was unusual for a player of his caliber at the time.
In List-A cricket, he achieved impressive stats, scoring over 4000 runs and taking nearly 50 wickets. Butcher was recognized for his batting skills, but he faced tough competition from players like Graham Thorpe and Graeme Hick, which prevented him from being selected for the 1999 World Cup squad.
From 2000 to 2002, Butcher scored well and was among the top 30 Test run-scorers worldwide. But his performance dropped after 2004, and he was dropped from the Test team after England toured South Africa that year.
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2. Matthew Hoggard
Matthew Hoggard is a notable figure in England’s Test Cricket history. He took the 9th highest number of wickets for England, totaling 248 wickets, including 26 instances of taking five wickets in a match. In List-A cricket, he performed admirably, securing 205 wickets, with four occasions of taking five wickets in a match.
However, his performance in One Day Internationals (ODIs) hasn’t been as good. In 26 matches over five years, he only got 32 wickets. Hoggard did start his ODI career strongly though. In his first series against Zimbabwe in October 2001, he was the top wicket-taker with 10 wickets, including his best performance of 5 wickets for 49 runs in a match in Harare.
In 2002, he played well and joined the 2003 World Cup team. But later, he didn’t play as often because players like Craig White, Ronnie Irani, Andrew Caddick, and James Anderson were chosen instead of him. Hoggard occasionally played in ODIs from after the 2003 World Cup until 2006. However, the team eventually dropped him after the Tour of India, and he never played again.
1. Alastair Cook
All the players we’ve talked about in this section have either played a few ODI matches or haven’t played any at all. But Alastair Cook is different. He’s played a lot of ODIs and has scored 3204 runs, making him England’s 14th highest ODI run-scorer.
Cook started playing ODIs in 2006 but only got to play two matches, which wasn’t enough for him to be in the 2007 World Cup team. He showed some great performances in 2007 and 2008 but didn’t return to the ODI team until 2010. In 2010, he played just three matches but did well, averaging 52 with two fifties. However, Andrew Strauss returned to the ODI team as captain, so Cook was dropped and missed the 2011 World Cup.
From 2011 to 2013, Cook played some excellent matches, often leading England as captain. However, his form declined after the 2013 Champions Trophy. He captained England in the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand but was later dropped because he performed poorly in Sri Lanka.
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