- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
In what will be a first in the history of men’s 50-over cricket world cup, not a single captain from the previous edition played in England and Wales will be leading a team in this year’s edition to be played in India in October -November.
Players have retired and change of guards happened at the top in the intervening years and while Kane Williamson of New Zealand is the only cricketer who could have captained his side in 2023 as he did in 2019, his injury sustained during a game in the Indian Premier League (IPL) has jeopardised his chances to take part in the upcoming event.
Williamson led the Kiwis to the final of the 2019 event but lost quite a controversial title clash against hosts England. He was also named the player of the tournament in 2019 as he scored 578 runs in nine innings. Tom Latham might lead New Zealand in the 2023 edition.
Among other teams that have qualified directly, the 2019 captains are not in leadership any more. For Afghanistan, Gulbadin Naib is still around but the Afghans have been led by Hashmatullah Shahidi for some time now.
Australia have a new captain in Pat Cummins as their 2019 skipper Aaron Finch has retired from international cricket. Bangladesh have Tamim Iqbal replacing Mashrafe Mortaza while the cup-winning Eoin Morgan also retired from international cricket last year, paving the way for England’s white-ball captain Jos Buttler.
India are now being led by Rohit Sharma who is all set to lead at home in 2023 (unless a major injury derails him) and he will replace Virat Kohli who had a fantastic run as the captain in the 2019 edition till the Men in Blue lost in the semi-final against the Black Caps.
Pakistan are now led by Babar Azam, who replaced Sarfaraz Ahmed who was in charge of the side in the 2019 edition.
Former world champions Sri Lanka and West Indies, who were in the 10-team fray last time, will have to appear in the qualifiers this year.
But even if they make it, they will play under new captains.
While Sri Lanka have Dasun Shanaka in charge, replacing Dimuth Karunaratne, the West Indies are led by Shai Hope now instead of Jason Holder who lost the top job after a poor show in the previous edition.
Four-time semi-finalists South Africa also have not qualified for the main event yet and they are also led now by Temba Bavuma in place of the now retired Faf du Plessis who led the Proteas in 2019.
The qualifying event for the world cup will take place in Zimbabwe between June 18 and July 9. Besides Sri Lanka and West Indies, Netherlands, Zimbabwe, Oman, USA, Nepal, Scotland, UAE, and one of Ireland and South Africa will take part.
The top two teams from the qualifier will advance to the main event which will be played between October 5 and November 19.
