5 Cricketers who won the World Cup but not IPL

Ask any cricketer what his ultimate dream is and they will say it is to play for their country and win the World Cup. Out of the millions of players, only a handful of them get the opportunity to represent their country and only a few out of those get the honour to represent their country in a World Cup.

Over the years very few players have been able to fulfill their dream of winning the World cup. “This is the biggest moment of my life”, this is what Sachin Tendulkar had to say after India won the World Cup in 2011. So you can just imagine what it must like to win Cricket’s Biggest Price.

But since the inception of IPL in 2008, winning the cash-rich tournament has now become cricket’s second biggest price and players across the world dream to be a part of an IPL winning team. Rohit Sharma has won it 5 times, Harbhajan singh and Ambati Rayudu have won it 4 times. But there are many World Cup winning Champions who still haven’t been able to win the IPL.

Today let’s look at some of the most prominent WC winning players who haven’t won an IPL

1. Virat Kohli

Arguably the best batsman in the world right now and one of the greatest limited overs batsman of all time. Unfortunately, Virat Kohli is also the first name that comes to mind when we think about the players who haven’t won an IPL. In his debut World cup in 2011, he won the championship with India but being the only player to have played for the same franchise for 12 seasons, Virat Kohli hasn’t won a single IPL trophy with the RCB.

He came closest to winning it in 2016 when RCB reached the finals only to be beaten by SRH. But that season will always be remembered for Virat’s heroic batting performance as he stacked up 973 runs hitting four centuries. He will surely be determined to go one step further come IPL 2020.

2. Steve Smith

If there is any player who has generated numbers which are even slightly comparable to the Great Sir Don Bradman in Test cricket, it is Steve Smith. He has the second highest average of 61.38 for any batsman who has played more than 20 Test matches. In Australia’s victorious campaign in the 2015 world cup, he created history by becoming the first player to score at least a half century in quarter finals, semi final and the final

With such glorious achievements, the one thing that has been missing on smith’s resume is an IPL trophy. He came very close to winning it with the Rising Pune Super Giant in IPL 2017 but eventually lost to Mumbai Indians by one run in the finals.

3. Michael Clarke

To win a World Cup as a player in itself is one of the greatest accomplishments, so just imagine what would it be like to win it as a captain and that too on home soil. Well, Michael Clarke knows exactly how it feels like when he led Australia to an unprecedented 5th title in the 2015 World Cup.

But as far IPL is concerned, Clarke had a rather forgetful and disappointing season with the now defunct Pune Warriors India featuring in just 6 matches in 2013 and scoring just 98 runs. To add further misery, his team also finished last that season. After that he never played for any other franchise in the IPL.

4. Sanath Jayasuriya

Easily one of the most destructive batsmen to have even played the game. Sanath Jayasuriya was at the forefront of world cricket when he and Ramesh Kaluwithana opened the batting in Sri Lanka’s victorious 1996 campaign and revolutionized ODI cricket as they kept attacking from ball one.

He was picked by the Mumbai Indians in the 2008 IPL auctions and he did deliver with the bat becoming MI’s leading run-getter that season scoring a century against arch-rivals CSK. In the next two seasons he was disappointing with the bat and played his last IPL match in 2010 and retired without winning the IPL.

5. Mitchell Starc

The first thing that comes to anyone’s mind when they hear the name of Mitchell Starc is a sneering in-swinging Yorker at over a 150 Km/h and that’s exactly what he did to Brendon McCullum in the 2015 World Cup final as he knocked over NZ’s trump card with just the 3rd ball of the match and finished as the leading wicket-taker of the tournament with 22 wickets and earned himself the Man of the tournament award.

But when it comes to the IPL, he is like a runaway bride. He comes into the auction and just as IPL is about to start he pulls out due to an injury or any other reason. He last played an IPL match in 2015 for RCB. He will surely be looking forward to next years auction and playing and winning the IPL.

~Written by Parth Parekh