Under Rohit Sharma, India have won 15 games in 16 ODIs across the 2023 World Cup and the 2025 Champions Trophy, and all eight T20Is at the 2024 T20 World Cup. How do they rank against the best sides in limited-overs history?
Comparing teams across eras and formats can be tricky. Some teams peak at the right time to win trophies. Some exhibit sustained success over a long period. Some do both. For this exercise, we shall consider both parameters.
Honourable mentions – India 1983-85, Pakistan 1989-92, Sri Lanka 1996-99
India won the World Cup in 1983, the inaugural Asia Cup in 1984, and the seven-nation World Championship of Cricket in Australia in 1984-85. The last of these was similar to the 2025 Champions Trophy – five matches, five wins. They followed this with two more wins (and the title) in the Rothmans Four-Nations Cup in Sharjah.
However, this phase also included a 5-0 drubbing at their hands West Indians as they came over to avenge the 1983 final. There were also home defeats against Australia and England. India won 18 ODIs and lost 15 over this period. Their win-loss ratio (1.2), while the second-best in this era, was puny in comparison to the West Indies (5.25).
Pakistan found sustained success towards the end of that decade, winning the six-nation Nehru Cup in India 1989-90 and the World Cup in 1992. In fact, in the three years two days before the 1992 World Cup final, Pakistan had an enviable record (42 wins, 16 defeats, ratio 2.625). It coincided with a transitional period for the West Indies, but Australia had a ratio 2.866 over this period.
Sri Lanka’s first great run started with 1996, when they became the second team to go through a World Cup unbeaten to lift the trophy. They did better than they had at any point before this, but their run came with a question mark. In Asia, they won 38 games and lost 19 between the two World Cups. Outside, the numbers read 11-15.
The what-ifs – West Indies 2012-16
Between their twin trophies in 2012 and 2016, the West Indies had also reached the semi-finals of the 2014 T20 World Cup. In all T20Is over this period, however, they had a ratio of 1.571 (India had 2.363 and Afghanistan 1.642). Over the same period, they lost 33 ODIs and won only 22.
That, however, partly had to do with the rift between the cricketers and the board (that reached a stage when the West Indies abandoned an Indian tour midway in 2014). As cricket moved beyond the international arena, the West Indians became the most sought-after superstars of franchise cricket.
What if that had not been the case? What if every cricketer could commit to every match? We shall never know.
6. Sri Lanka 2007-2014
In the new millennium, Sri Lanka began to exert their dominance, which culminated in four appearances in the final – two in each World Cup – across a span of seven years. Australia had steamrolled all oppositions in the 2000s. The West Indies became the first to win two T20 World Cups. But Sri Lanka were the first to peak simultaneously in both.
In the period including and between the 2007 and 2011 ODI World Cups, Sri Lanka won 63 ODIs and lost 41. Their ratio of 1.536 was behind that of Australia, South Africa, and India. Similarly, for the period including (and between) the 2012 and 2014 T20 World Cups, Sri Lanka won 17 and lost six T20Is (2.833) – yet again, behind India’s 3. Even during their peak, thus, Sri Lanka were behind the Indian side that won both ODI trophies between 2007 and 2013.
Why are India 2011-13 not on this list? Between the 2011 World Cup and the 2013 Champions Trophy, India’s ratio of 2.176 was the best in ODIs, but with 1.5 each, England and Pakistan were not too far behind. More significantly, they kept failing at the T20 World Cup since the 2007 triumph.
5. England 2016-2022
Since their impressive initial run at the World Cup – they were the only team to make it to each of the first five semi-finals – England did little of note in ODIs until Bangladesh knocked them out of 2015 World Cup. Then, with focus on extending their batting line-up and emphasis on power-hitting, they turned their fortunes around.
It took time for the results to show, but England did drop James Anderson, Stuart Broad (two of their top three wicket-takers in the format), and Ian Bell (their leading run-scorer) from their XI. From June 2016 to the end of the 2019 World Cup, they played 19 ODI series of all kinds: of these, they drew one and lost only three (including a one-off match against Scotland).
Their win-loss ratio of 3.235, however, was only marginally ahead of India’s 2.8. While the best ODI side, England were not significantly ahead.
At the same time, however, England rose rapidly up the T20I ladder. Between October 2018 and July 2021, their ratio of 2.444 (22 wins, nine defeats) was the best among Full Members, but not far ahead of India’s 1.846.
But England’s story did not end there. They lost three bilateral series (and lost the semi-final of the 2021 T20 World Cup), but there was still enough steam left in that unit to lift the T20 World Cup in 2022. To date, they are the only men’s team to hold both World Cups at the same time.
4. South Africa, 1995-2000
The 1990s were when ODIs truly peaked – and the South Africans returned to the fold. Having honed much of their limited-overs abilities under floodlights during their exile, they adjusted better to day-night ODIs that expanded over the decade.
By 1995, the West Indies had started to fade out. The Australians had begun their ascent, but South Africa were the dominant side. Between October that year and February 2000, South Africa won 84 ODIs and lost 23. The ratio, 3.652, was more than twice of Australia’s 1.622. Unfortunately, unlike South Africa, Australia made it to two World Cup finals and won one of them.
But South Africa did not fare poorly. They won all five league matches at the 1996 World Cup before losing the quarter-final and famously tied the 1999 semi-final and were eliminated. In between, they won the 1998 Champions Trophy. They also won the gold medal at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, but the matches did not get ODI status.
3. India, 2023-25
Not only have India won two of the three major tournaments over the last fifteen months but they have lost one game out of 24 across the two formats. More significantly, they have been nearly blemish-free.
True, this included 2024, India’s first year without a single ODI win since 1979. However, India also played only three ODIs (and tied one) that year – also their fewest since 1979. Across the two other series between the two tournaments – in South Africa in December 2023, against England at home in February 2025 – they won five ODIs and lost one.
But let us go further back. Since the start of 2023, India’s win-loss ratio of 3.888 (35 wins, nine defeats) is more than twice of second-placed Sri Lanka’s 1.857 – but that is not all. Over the same period, India have won 41 T20Is and lost 10: among Full Members, only Australia (2.625) comes anywhere remotely close to their ratio of 4.1. This included winning a World Cup without losing a match – a near-impossible feat in a format this fickle.
Few teams in history have surpassed this.
2. West Indies, 1980s
In the first World Cup, in 1975, The West Indies added 64 for the last wicket (101 for the last two) to win the league match against a Pakistan without Imran Khan. The final, too, was won by only 17 runs. True, they won without losing a game, but it was not an easy route.
Things changed over the next few years. After his three spinners failed to defend 403 in a Test against against India, Clive Lloyd switched to a four-pronged pace attack. By then, Michael Holding had arrived to join hands with Andy Roberts. Colin Croft and Joel Garner would soon arrive.
Then, at Kerry Packer’s, the bunch of supremely talented individuals would turn into limited-overs cricket’s first consistent side. A legendary opening pair followed by destructive stroke-players, four exceptional fast bowlers, world-class fielding – the 1979 World Cup was predictably a cakewalk. However, their true might would be evident only in the next decade.
Why are we discounting the 1970s? Only 74 ODIs were played until the end of the 1979 World Cup – including 50 in England. The West Indies themselves played only nine games outside the two World Cups. They were the best side in the world, but this is too small, too skewed a sample to establish dominance.
Through the 1980s, the West Indies won 122 ODIs and lost 46. No team managed even half that (with 1.070, Australia were the only other side with more wins than defeats).
In fact, between May 1980 and December 1986, they won every series featuring four teams or fewer irrespective of length. The juggernaut seemed unstoppable, except – to borrow an oft-used cricketing cliche – “when it really mattered”.
There were only two World Cups in the entire decade 1980s. One can add two other tournaments to this – the 1984-85 seven-nation World Championship of Cricket and the 1989-90 six-nation Nehru Cup. It is not unfair to combine these in this era of seven Full Members.
Across these four tournaments, the West Indies made two appearances in the final and another in the semi-final, but there was no silverware. Had this happened in the age of social media, they might have been been branded the “chokers”.
The team had found more sustained success over a very long period of time, albeit in an era when the pool consisted of a handful of teams. But there was no defining moment. Yet, they pip India in sheer longevity.
1. Australia 2002-04... but generally, all 2000s
Australia ended the 1999 World Cup and started the 2011 World Cup with mini-strings of wins, but what they did in between is the stuff of folklore.
In 2003, they became the first team to win as many as 11 matches to lift a World Cup. In 2007, they did the same – but with even more one-sided results. That decade, they also became the first team to win the Champions Trophy twice, in 2006 and 2009.
Between January 2001 and May 2010, Australia won 199 ODIs and lost 62. Their ratio (3.209) was not quite twice of South Africa’s 1.837. But then, there were more teams and more venues at this point than before, and Australia had maintained their record despite not one but two transitions. The team that lifted the Champions Trophy in 2009 was barely recognisable from the one that had won the 1999 World Cup.
But let us turn our focus to the phase between December 2002 and August 2004 (longer than the period between the 2023 World Cup and the 2025 Champions Trophy). Australia won 48 ODIs and lost eight – without, for a while, both Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. This included 21 consecutive wins, the only streak of 15 or more in men’s ODI history. Their win-loss ratio of exactly 6 was four times anyone else’s.
Curiously, three of their four global titles came later in the decade, outside this phase.
The greatest men’s limited-overs side.
