Bhuvneshwar Kumar

That display earned him a Test call-up for the Chennai match against Australia in 2013. The same year he was named in the ODI squad for the Champions Trophy and then played a tri-nation event, taking his best figures of 4-8 against Sri Lanka and finishing as leading wicket-taker to be named Man of the Series. Tours of South Africa and New Zealand were less fruitful, as a push for extra pace cost him some of his skill. In England in 2014 he topped the Test wicket charts, earned a place on the Lord's honours board and added three half-centuries with the bat.

Fitness problems kept him largely out of the 2015 World Cup, where he appeared only against the UAE. In 2016 he played just four Tests but claimed two five-wicket hauls, against West Indies and New Zealand. Improved fitness then brought more speed, a reliable yorker, skill with the old ball and reverse swing, and by the 2017 Champions Trophy he was spearheading the ODI pace attack alongside Jasprit Bumrah.

In Tests he was often an injury replacement, yet he kept adding weapons, including a scrambled-seam ball used in the 2017 home series against Australia. He troubled Sri Lanka and South Africa's top order in the 2017-18 season, but an injury ruled him out of Tests before India's mid-2018 tour of England. As his pace declined he still featured in white-ball cricket, including the 2021 and 2022 T20 World Cups, before younger seamers were preferred.

In the IPL, Royal Challengers Bangalore picked him before the 2009 season but gave him no IPL games across two years; his only outing was a wicketless 2009 Champions League match against Delhi Daredevils. Pune Warriors signed him in 2011, and Sunrisers Hyderabad took him on in 2014. An early user of the knuckle ball, he won the Purple Cap in both 2016 and 2017 and stayed central to the Hyderabad side until the 2025 season, when he became a big-money signing for the Royal Challengers.