Fab four (cricket)

The Fab Four or Fabulous Four is a phrase that has been used in Indian cricket to describe a elite group of players.

Fab four was used to describe the four leading batsmen in the Indian national team during the 2000s (Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar). The term was well-documented in the Indian press and regarded as some of the greatest cricketers the country has produced. However, this is misleading; an analysis of 80 tests played by the "Fab Four", only 26 were won by India. The term fell into disuse after Ganguly's retirement in 2008.

Since their retirements, it has evolved to describe four of the leading batsmen from around the world: Virat Kohli, Joe Root, Steve Smith and Kane Williamson. It was first applied to the group in 2014 by Martin Crowe as he highlighted their potential to monopolise the top of the Test match batting rankings for many years.

Kohli, Root, Smith and Williamson are of a similar age and have consistently been ranked in the top 5 in the ICC Player Rankings. At the only edition of ICC Awards of the Decade, held in 2020, all four were nominated for "ICC Cricketer of the Decade", as well as "ICC Test Cricketer of the Decade", with Kohli and Smith winning respectively. . Commentators such as Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan have suggested that the Pakistani bastman Babar Azam should be added to the group, dubbing it the "Fab Five".

Fab four has also been applied to groups of bowlers. For example, in 2019, commentator Harsha Bhogle noted a "fab four" of fast bowlers who stood out as potential all-time greats in all three formats of cricket: Kagiso Rabada, Jofra Archer, Pat Cummins and Jasprit Bumrah.