It’s going to be another big year for Test cricket, with the World Test Championship final at Lord’s, England hosting India for five games, and finally the Ashes. 

In descending order, Mail Sport picks out 10 Test cricketers with a point to prove in 2025.

10: Temba Bavuma (South Africa)

Nothing personal: Bavuma’s recent form should really have ended the whispering campaign which suggested he owed his place in South Africa’s middle order to the quota system. 

But as captain of a team who – through no fault of their own – have reached the WTC final through the back door, Bavuma embodies something broader. 

If South Africa can beat Australia at Lord’s in June, they can silence the critics, and kick the latest plans for a two-tier Test structure into the long grass, where it belongs.

Australia’s No 3 Marnus Labuschagne ought to be heading into the prime of his career

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9: Marnus Labuschagne (Australia)

Australia’s No 3 ought to be heading into the prime of his career. He’s 30, has won 55 caps, averages 47, and plays for the best team in the world. 

And yet. It’s not simply that his returns have fallen away: since the start of the home series against West Indies in January, Labuschagne has averaged 21, dismissed for 12 or fewer in 12 of his 17 innings. 

It’s that his grinding approach has been put into sharper focus by the emergence of the renegade Sam Konstas. Labuschagne’s job is to show he still belongs in the new era.

8: Ben Stokes (England)

His most recent injury, during the Hamilton Test, raised a ghoulish spectre: will Stokes’s hamstring become the 2025 equivalent of Compton’s knee or Beckham’s metatarsal? 

It’s hard to overstate just how badly England will need their captain to be in a position to bowl 12 to 15 overs a day if they are to challenge India and Australia, especially because he is without a Test century in 28 innings. 

But his social-media pledge to ‘f*** some s*** up’ revealed his state of mind: Stokes will not go gentle into that good night. England are hoping the sun doesn’t set until after the Ashes.

7: Babar Azam (Pakistan)

Quiz question: how many Test centuries does Babar Azam have? The answer – nine – may surprise you, given that Pakistan’s star batsman once had aspirations to turn the Fab Four into the Fab Five. But the last of those nine came in December 2022, since when Babar has been dropped, then resurrected as an emergency opener. 

The better news is he recently made three fifties in South Africa. But when Pakistan begin a two-match series against West Indies in Multan on Friday, more eyes than usual will be on a player who – like Labuschagne – ought to be at his peak.

It’s hard to overstate just how badly England need Ben Stokes to be in a position to bowl

Babar Azam recently made three fifties in South Africa – but needs to find a century and fast

England are excited by Shoaib Bashir’s potential – but may not need a spinner in Australia

6: Shoaib Bashir (England)

England’s decision to allow their first-choice spinner to learn on the job is in danger of backing them into a corner. 

They have plainly decided Jack Leach won’t win them games on flat pitches, and are rightly excited by Bashir’s potential. But his encouraging haul of 49 wickets in his first year as a Test cricketer was offset by the price he paid – 40 per wicket and 3.75 an over. 

Then there’s the question of whether England need a spinner in Australia anyway. If Bashir endures a mediocre series against India, there will be little time for a change of tack.

5: KL Rahul (India)

In a country of such batting riches as India, it is borderline criminal that an established player can possess a Test average of 33 and cling on to his place as if everything is fine. 

Step forward KL Rahul, whose career has been a curious mixture of fighting innings overseas (centuries at Sydney, The Oval, Lord’s and two at Centurion) and droughts as big as the Sahara. In Australia recently, he averaged 30, which will probably be enough to get him on the plane to England.

4: Ollie Pope (England)

They may or may not be calling it Pope’s Paradox. By scoring important runs at No 6 in New Zealand, England’s vice-captain added fuel to the argument he least wants to hear: that he is less suited to No 3. 

The emergence of Jacob Bethell was a double whammy. When Jamie Smith returns to take the gloves for the one-off Test against Zimbabwe in May, Pope will be the logical omission. 

Stokes has always backed him, but Brendon McCullum was hedging his bets after the Hamilton Test last month, describing the Bethell/Pope conundrum as a ‘good problem to have’. Pope will have to score a hatful of runs for Surrey in April and May, then hope for the best.

KL Rahul’s average of 33 is borderline criminal in a country of such batting riches as India

Ollie Pope will have to score a hatful of runs for Surrey in April and May, then hope for the best

At 38 years old, whether Usman Khawaja can hang on until the Ashes remains to be seen

3: Usman Khawaja (Australia)

After one half-century in 10 innings against India, Khawaja cheerfully suggested he’d been ‘Bumrah’d’. And in a sense he was right: Bumrah removed him six times in all, once in each Test (and twice at Brisbane), for scores of 8, 13, 21, 8, 57 and 2. 

The trouble was, he had only recently been Henry’d, falling to Matt Henry for 33, 16 and 11 during Australia’s successful two-match tour of New Zealand. 

Opening the batting is, along with leg-spin, one of the two toughest jobs in Test cricket. But Khawaja will turn 39 during the Ashes. Can he hang on?

2: Virat Kohli (India)

Is it really the case that Kohli’s reward for five years of Test mediocrity – culminating in a miserable tour of Australia – will be a return to the captaincy for the tour of England? 

The madness is that this can’t be ruled out: Indian cricket works in mysterious ways. Yet Kohli’s trajectory should worry the selectors – from the great (he averaged 55 in October 2019) to the very good (that figure is now below 47). 

He may yet write one last glorious chapter in England this summer. But we are deep into the realms of hope over expectation.

1: Zak Crawley (England)

Crawley could probably have made six ducks in New Zealand, and England would have stuck by him because of his recent record against India and Australia. But his dismantling by Henry (six dismissals at a personal cost of 10 runs) has left him – and the selectors – with little wriggle room. 

McCullum’s logic is that Crawley is as likely as any England opener to destroy a good attack on a flat pitch: see Old Trafford 2023. But Jasprit Bumrah would be a handful on concrete and, as the surface at Sydney for the fifth Test against India showed, Australia are not averse to greentops. 

England’s experiment is in danger of becoming grimly fascinating.

India’s Virat Kohli has been in a dismal run of form with the bat and needs to revive his career

Zak Crawley is as likely as any England opener to destroy a good attack on a flat pitch

Punishing Afghanistan’s male cricketers could spell the end 

Last week, this column argued that boycotting the Afghanistan men’s team at the Champions Trophy would make no difference to the Taliban’s medieval treatment of women. 

But don’t take our word for it: listen to Firooza Amiri, once a member of Afghanistan’s women’s side, now speaking eloquently about her and her former team-mates’ plight. 

Speaking to the BBC’s Newsnight, she told Victoria Derbyshire: ‘Banning the men’s team at the moment is not going to make any positive impact on the women’s team.’

Instead, Amiri advocated a course of action so sensible the administrators have ignored it. A significant chunk of the funds currently made available by the ICC to Afghanistan should go directly to women players who have emigrated to Australia, allowing them to set up base there. 

Punishing the male cricketers could end the sport in Afghanistan for ever. Amiri and her friends know that better than any western theoretician.

England need an Ashes miracle

Seamer Lauren Bell suggested after England’s four-wicket defeat in the first ODI of the women’s Ashes in Sydney that they were ‘going to imagine it’s 0-0’ ahead of Monday’s second game in Melbourne. 

But after choking in a chase of 181, collapsing from 68 for two to 159 all out, their imagination will have to go into overdrive. Australia already have four points of the eight they need from the multiformat series to retain the urn, which means they can afford to lose the last ODI and all three T20s, so long as they win the one-off Test. 

The gap seems as big as ever.

Australia Women took full control in the Ashes with a 21-run victory over England on Monday

But after choking in a chase of 181, England’s imagination will have to go into overdrive

‘Seagull killer’ Vince is not alone 

James Vince was branded a ‘seagull killer’ by one headline after a lethal straight-drive during a Big Bash game for Sydney Sixers at the MCG. But if it’s any consolation, he’s not the first. 

The Lord’s Museum still houses a stuffed sparrow killed mid-delivery by a ball from Cambridge University’s Jehangir Khan during a game against MCC in 1936.