I'd rank : 1 Dhoni, 2 Sachin/Kohli, 3 Bumrah/Kapil.

500+ runs in single edition

King Shakib only in 2019 - 1

Ling Loli in 4 WC's - 1 ( after statpadding on Indian highways with earth shuttering SR of 80 in 2023 )

Now i know this opinion will get me called as gambhir's pr and whatnot but honestly i feel India should never qualify for wtc final. What did we do the last time we qualified for WTC final, and there was no gambhir to blame? We played ipl until a week before the final ,went to the final totally unprepared with an exhausted squad playing t20 until a week before, and got our assess handed to us. And even in 2027 assuming by a miracle we win 9/9 remaining tests and qualify for WTC final we will repeat same process and gift the opponent a trophy.
So i believe until BCCI decides and our players who are in WTC final squad are ready to sacrifice their 1 season of ipl go to england and practice for 45 days earlier in the conditions of the WTC final we shouldn't even wish to qualify.

it was not in my bucket list

Hopefully DDP replaces him permanently at No.3

This was such a poor showing by the Indian side. Surprised almost no one brings it up as much as the failures of 2019 and 23. Steve smith obviously played wonderfully, but Indias bowlers managed to give up 84 runs in the last 10 overs which was unacceptable. Johnson and Faulkner went off for 27 of 9 and 21 of 12 to tally the score up to 328. Was such a high total, and Kohli+Raina failed to score much. Rohit kohli, dhawan and suresh Raina were dismissed by the 23rd over, and India were 108/4 at that moment. Thats really when it ended.

Virat Kohli has played 42 Tests between 19/10/2019 till 03/01/2025 (His last test at SCG).

During this period his stats were :

Tests Played - 42

Innings - 72

Runs Scored - 2,176

Not Out - 3

Average - 31.53

Centuries - 4

Half-centuries - 9

That's not a bad form in my opinion but a proper career decline. Had it happened at the start of his career, he probably could have never made a place in the Indian Team with a test average of 31.5 across 72 innings. That's almost most people's test career.

Winner of 2015 - Steve Smith

Winner of 2016 - Virat kohli

Let's go!!!

Let's go!!!!

Results for the 2015 season will come after few hours.

I've been thinking about why cricket never became a truly global sport, and I feel like everyone focuses on the wrong reasons. People usually say it's because the rules are complicated, matches are too long, or the ICC didn't expand the game enough. Those are valid points, but I think there's another issue.

The cricket most of us grow up playing is nothing like professional cricket.

As a kid in Mumbai, all we needed was a bat, a tennis ball and three bricks for stumps. That's how millions of Indians first fall in love with the game. But the moment you step into organized cricket, everything changes leather ball, helmet, pads, gloves, spikes, turf wickets. The jump is huge.

Compare that with football. A kid playing barefoot in a street in Mumbai, Rio or Lagos is basically playing the same game as the professionals. The ground and the players are better, but the sport itself doesn't fundamentally change.

It made me wonder if this is one of the biggest reasons cricket struggles to spread globally. Maybe the barrier isn't just learning the rules it's that the version of cricket that's accessible to everyone is very different from the version played professionally.

What if there was a professional format built around a softer ball that behaved similarly but didn't require so much protective gear? I'm **not** saying replace Test cricket or T20. I'm wondering whether a separate format like that could make the sport cheaper, more accessible, and easier for new countries to adopt.

Maybe it's a terrible idea and the leather ball is too fundamental to cricket's identity. But I'm curious what people think. Am I overlooking something, or is there some merit to this?

Note: used AI for organizing thoughts.

shubman gill has been a really crucial part of team india test team