India, Sept. 23 -- For Gautam Gambhir, the all-format cricketer is becoming an increasingly difficult idea to sustain. Speaking to JioStar, the India head coach said that while coaches and selectors would naturally prefer as many players as possible to feature across Tests, ODIs and T20Is, "you will have very few three-format players in the coming times" because rotation and format-specific preparation will increasingly compel teams to divide their resources.

It is an assertion that feels plausible in an age of relentless scheduling, but intuition alone tells us little. To examine it, we created a Three-Format Dependecy Index (TDI), designed not merely to identify cricketers who have appeared in all three formats, but to measue how extre...