The playing squads for the upcoming Men’s T20 World Cup were finalised on January 31. Here is our XI of players that did not make the cut, or were unavailable for their national team.
Note: Players missing the tournament through injury have not been considered.
All figures mentioned are for men’s T20 cricket from June 30, 2024.
Shubman Gill
1184 runs | Avg 38.19 | SR 144.92 | HS: 93*
Gill made a comeback to India’s Asia Cup squad last year as the team’s vice-captain, the role he had essayed in Sri Lanka a year prior. His reintroduction broke up the dynamite opening pair of Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma, and while Gill was solid enough, he didn’t quite pack the same punch.
Come the World Cup squad selection, he lost his spot as the selectors opted for the in-form Ishan Kishan instead, saying they wanted a wicketkeeper who could open the batting in the squad.
Yashasvi Jaiswal
925 runs | Avg 44.04 | SR 163.42 | HS: 101
Jaiswal played six T20Is immediately after the previous World Cup, but hasn’t played for India in the shortest format since July 2024. He made over 550 IPL runs, striking at 160, but even that wasn’t enough to earn him a run at the top of the order. It was not shocking when he wasn’t named in the squad. He remains a mainstay in Test cricket, but it is astounding to think India can afford to leave him out of two of their teams.
Steve Smith
945 runs | Avg 49.73 | SR 156.19 | HS: 121*
Smith’s reinvention in T20 cricket has been a sight to behold, exemplified by his incredible run in his sporadic Big Bash League appearances. It was not surprising when he didn’t make the cut for the last World Cup, but there was a larger swell of support in Australia for his inclusion this time around.
Australia resisted the temptation across the last 18 months or so to hand Smith a first T20I cap since February 2024 – this may partly be down to the level at which he has performed. While the BBL and Major League Cricket are not low-quality by any stretch, they are probably not the top two T20 competitions outside of international cricket.
Nicholas Pooran (wk)
3140 runs | Avg 37.38 | SR 148.95 | HS: 108*
Pooran is the poster boy for today's T20 globetrotter. He did play for the West Indies at the last World Cup, but called time on his international career last June, aged just 29. It's no surprise that over the last one and a half years, he is the world's leading run-scorer in the format, and the only one with over 3,000 runs. They don't come slowly either; that strike rate says as much in spite of a dip in form since the last IPL.
Read more: Before Pooran: Eight sudden retirements that shook modern cricket
South Africa's Heinrich Klaasen is another who fits into this category. He retired in the same month Pooran did, but has struggled for his best form since, averaging 24 and striking at under 140 over the past six months.
Jordan Cox
1550 runs | Avg 32.97 | SR 142.33 | HS: 139*
Cox earned a maiden T20I cap in September 2024 after top-scoring for Hundred champions Oval Invincibles.
He never really nailed down a place in England’s middle-order, but was in barnstorming form otherwise, putting together three 300-run seasons in a row in 2025 in the T20 Blast, The Hundred and ILT20. He was Player of the Tournament in the Hundred, and remains on the fringes internationally but could cement a spot sooner rather than later.
Matthew Short
1345 runs | Avg 28.02 | SR 151.29 | HS: 109
30 wickets | Avg 24.13 | ER 8.13 | BBI: 5-22
Short actually did make Australia’s squad… until he didn’t. The 2021 champions named a provisional squad at the start of January, but made two changes on January 31; Pat Cummins was ruled out with injury and Short was replaced by Matthew Renshaw, who gave them a left-handed option and middle-order cover for Tim David.
Short is more of a top-order batter, but Australia have not been shy to use him lower down. His domestic T20 form has been the standout since 2024, but Short made just 75 runs in seven T20Is against Pakistan and India leading into the tournament. It’s not hard to think that form might have played a role in his axing.
Liam Livingstone
1480 runs | Avg 30.20 | SR 145.38 | HS: 87
34 wickets | Avg 24.00 | ER 8.88 | BBI: 3-22
Livingstone was dropped from England’s team after the T20Is against India at the start of 2025, having averaged 20 with the bat across that and the preceding series against the West Indies, put together. An iffy IPL did not help matters, even as his side, RCB, won the title.
Much like his compatriot Cox, Livingstone has been in excellent form since then, striking at nearly 160 across 30 games in the Blast, Hundred, ILT20 and SA20 – not to mention his more-than-handy ability to bowl both off spin and leg spin.
Sunil Narine
61 wickets | Avg 28.73 | ER 6.44 | BBI: 3-12
521 runs | Avg 12.11 | SR 146.76 | HS: 44
Narine has not played international cricket since 2019, but remains a menace on the franchise circuit. With nearly 600 T20s under his belt, there is nothing he hasn't seen. But in the recent past, he has gone from a genuine strike bowler to a far more defensive one, where wickets are almost exclusively a by-product of the choking of runs. A economy rate of under 6.5 in the modern game is outstanding, not to mention that he can still swing the bat; that average of 12 comes with several caveats.
A not dissimilar case is South Africa wrist spinner Tabraiz Shamsi, who hasn't played for a T20I since the 2024 final. He even took CSA to court for a BBL NOC, barely a year after opting out of a central contract.
Mustafizur Rahman
84 wickets | Avg 20.00 | ER 7.43 | BBI: 3-11
In 20 years, we might look back at Mustafizur'srecent excellent form as the point at which international cricket broke. It was that form that led to an IPL contract worth INR 9.2 crore with KKR, and then his subsequent booting from the tournament which means most cricket fans outside the subcontinent now have a better grasp of South Asian politics than they ever expected.
Read more: Gone in 21 days: The sequence of events leading to Bangladesh's ousting from the T20 World Cup
In any case, that form is 84 wickets, with an economy rate under eight an over, with shades of the Fizz that broke onto the scene almost a decade ago. This includes 59 wickets in the last calendar year, at less than seven an over.
Ottneil Baartman
50 wickets | Avg 20.72 | ER 8.98 | BBI: 5-16
South Africa announced their squad on January 2, and had to subsequently make a couple of injury-forced changes. But Baartman, “one of South Africa's best white-ball bowlers” according to Dale Steyn, did not find a place.
Long-considered a specialist at the death, he did what he does best in response to his omission; in the 2026 SA20, he finished as the top wicket-taker, with a standout spell of 5-16 against Pretoria Capitals that included the league’s second-ever hat-trick.
There was also some friction later on as Baartman claimed he was not kept in the loop about his exclusion from the World Cup squad, while CSA convenor of selectors Patrick Moroney insisted that he had had a phone conversation with the quick about it.
Haris Rauf
100 wickets | Avg 21.11 | ER 9.00 | BBI: 4-22
Rauf has always been a bowler on the expensive side, with the trade-off of frequent strikes. He was a regular in T20Is until the Asia Cup final, where he conceded 26 runs off his last 10 deliveries as Pakistan lost to India.
Prior to that, he had taken 17 wickets each in the PSL and MLC, and following that he took 20 wickets in the BBL; the most in the league. None of that was enough to earn a recall – head coach Mike Hesson explained that his omission had to do with conditions Pakistan would encounter in Colombo, and the all-phase capability of the quicks selected.
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