Cricket's nicest guys

[Barney Rubble]

It is great, as a cricket fan, to know that most of the sport's greatest heroes are not nearly as spoiled by fame and fortune as some other professional athletes around the world can be. I have had the fortune to meet many players, past and present, over the last 18 months or so, and can honestly say that only two people (Michael Holding and Charl Willoughby) have not been perfectly approachable, friendly and appreciative.

With so many great characters around in cricket at the moment, who gets the vote as the nicest guy around?

Having met most of the England Test players from the past two years, plus most of last summer's South Africans and this summer's West Indians, Matthew Hoggard, Graeme Smith, Chris Gayle and Marcus Trescothick stand out as great blokes, and a bad word could never be said about the character of Ashley Giles. He deserves every success he gets.

 

[steds]

Having met most of the England Test players from the past two years, plus most of last summer's South Africans and this summer's West Indians, Matthew Hoggard, Graeme Smith, Chris Gayle and Marcus Trescothick stand out as great blokes, and a bad word could never be said about the character of Ashley Giles. He deserves every success he gets.

Are you a stalker by any chance?

 

[Langeveldt]

Im sure most international cricketers are decent fellows off the field.. People that stand out for me are

Rahul Dravid
Jonty Rhodes
Neil McKenzie
Chris Gayle
Heath Streak
Allan Donald
Ashley Giles
Shaun Pollock

 

[Hit4Six]

Dravid def, Gayle = seems very calm n composed, the coolest cricketer at the moment, id add Sachin to that list as well

 

[Richard]

Had a few threads like this - agree with this:

Im sure most international cricketers are decent fellows off the field

There are inevitably going to be some who've experienced certain players' decency and so they'll stand-out for them.

 

[sledger]

mohamed azruhdin must be in tehre somehwere

 

[Dasa]

I had the opportunity to meet the entire India team during their 1999/2000 tour. Judging from then, Srinath was one of the nicest guys in the team. Venkatesh Prasad was another nice guy, and the usual Tendulkar and Dravid. One who certainly wasn't the nicest guy around was Ganguly.
From international players, I've always thought Harmison looked like a nice guy.

 

[ReallyCrazy]

its gotta be Rahul Dravd.

 

[one_dayer]

Wavell Hinds of the West Indies, did you hear him when Ian Bishop finished interviewing him after one of the ICC CT ODI games? "thankyou Mr Bishop" he said That sort of politeness is unheard of by Englishmen these days

Andrew Strauss seems like a nice fello.

 

[Jono]

I've met a lot of the current Indian team and they were all nice. Dravid was a great bloke as expected, and so was Tendulkar but one who really stood out for me was Laxman. He was great to talk to, and he had lots of fun with the rest of the team as well. Srinath was also very cool

No one was really rude at all. Especially considering I met them during/after a training session and some were quite tired.

 

[masterblaster]

Ive had the pleasure of talking to a lot of Indian Cricketers in the past and recently, and the nicest guys would have to be Srinath, Prasad, Agarkar, Laxman, Dravid and Tendulkar.

Ganguly was a little pompous, but thats not generally a bad thing. He wasn't too bad, but wasn't in the league of 'niceness' as the other blokes.

 

[natarajnv]

When talking about cricketers of years gone by couple of people come quickly to my ind - G R Vishwanath and Chandrashekar. Great sportsmen on and off the field.

 

[Dasa]

Another very nice guy is Akash Chopra. I remember having a brief chat with him at the Boxing Day Test, very nice of him to interrupt his training for a moment to chat to fans.

 

[FRAZ]

Strange most of the members just voted for the Indian cricketers .Thats nice to see tht "In general" fans like Indian players .... Yup behaviour wise they are no too bad ........... Balaji is the best Indian cricketer behaviour wise , Attitude wise , talk wise . HE the man , GO Balaji GO...........
And behaviour wise Shoaib Akhtar is the best ........
Yeah yeah go on go on ........... Jelousy ..............
See how he went to Lara when he accidently bowled a bouncer ........
Thats good .........

 

[Dasa]

^I think you'll find most people are naming cricketers they have personally seen to be 'nice'... Being an Indian fan, I am of course more likely to have approached Indian players than non-Indians, thus I named Indians.. simple.

 

[FRAZ]

^I think you'll find most people are naming cricketers they have personally seen to be 'nice'... Being an Indian fan, I am of course more likely to have approached Indian players than non-Indians, thus I named Indians.. simple.

Chill my friend , No offense , No offense , Just was admiring that indian cricket has the most number of fans in the world , and behaviour wise They are very good ...........
AH Gosh , Fraz you are hated a lot ..............

 

[marc71178]

Ignore Fraz, he's just trying to stir up trouble (as per usual)

 

[Barney Rubble]

Are you a stalker by any chance?

lol No, I just went to a couple of Tests and hung around by the players' exit afterwards. It's interesting to see the players' moods after a day's play - when England had been thrashed round the park by SA for 361-4 after day 1 at the Oval last year, Vaughan et al were grumpy as hell (except for Giles, he had taken two wickets), but Gibbs (who scored 183), Kirsten, Smith, Pollock etc were laughing and joking around with everyone. It worked the other way around when England had a good day v WI at Lord's this year.

 

[SJS]

Other than those named. Here are those who 'seem' like nice guys to me from what I have seen of them on TV.

- Brett Lee
- Wasim Akram
- Flintoff
- Strauss
- Courtney Browne
- Mushtaq Ahmed

and yes, Mark Waugh

 

[SirBloody Idiot]

Adam Gilchrist for me.

A top bloke.

Liddle Langer is class as well.