Five Famous Cricket Players

It’s nearly impossible to live or grow up in England, India, New Zealand, West Indies, Australia, or South Africa, without being familiar with cricket. It doesn’t matter if you are an ardent fan of the game or indifferent; cricket is to these regions as football is to some others. The bat-and-ball game has been played since the 17th century in England, and today, it’s the second most popular sport in the world.

Cricket players or cricketers, as they are fondly called, earn thousands and millions of dollars yearly from the game and sponsorship and endorsement deals.

This is a list of some of the most popular cricket players in the world. If you are a fan of cricket, you must have heard about some or all of them.

MS Dhoni

Born on July 7, 1981, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, popularly referred to as “Mahi” or “Captain Cool”, is a former Indian international cricket player who captained the Team India, India’s national cricket team, from 2007 to 2017. Mahendra played as a right-handed middle-order batsman and wicketkeeper. He is one of the highest run-scorers in One Day Internationals.

With several awards under his belt, such as the ICC ODI Player of the Year Award in 2008 and 2009 (he was the first double winner of the award), Dhoni also led his team to win several awards, including the 2007 ICC World Twenty20 Award, the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, the 2010 and 2016 Asia cups, and the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy.

In 2012, SportsPro rated Dhoni as the 16th most marketable athlete in the world. He’s widely considered as one of the richest cricketers in the world.

Chris Gayle

Christopher Henry Gayle is a Jamaican international cricket player who plays for the West Indies team. Born on Sept. 21, 1979, Gayle is a left-handed batting-all-rounder who captained the West Indies Test side from 2007 to 2010.

Being the most capped player for the West Indies, Gayle is the first-ever batsman to hit 1,000 sixes in T20 cricket. He’s also the only player who has scored a triplet of centuries: a triple hundred in tests, a hundred in T20Is, and a double hundred in ODIs.

Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli is an Indian cricket player and presently the captain of Men in Blue. This right-handed top-order batsman is considered one of the best in the world. Born on Nov. 5, 1988, Virat rose to stardom when he led India’s under-19 team to victory at the Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia in 2008.

Kohli won the Man of the Tournament award twice, at the ICC World Twenty20 in 2014 and 2016. He holds the second-highest number of centuries and highest number of centuries in run chases. In addition to all these honors and awards, Kohli is also one of the highest-paid cricketers in the world. He currently plays for Delhi in domestic cricket and Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League.

Sachin Tendulkar

Popularly known as “Master Blaster” or “Little Master”, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is an Indian former international cricketer flatteringly described by BBC as “India’s god of cricket”.

Tendulkar served as the captain of the Indian national cricket team, and he is the all-time highest run-scorer in international cricket. He’s the only player ever to have scored 100 international centuries. With a net worth of $120 million, Tendulkar is undoubtedly the richest cricketer in the world.

This 48-year-old is the first batsman to score a double century in an ODI. Currently, he holds the record for the most runs in ODI and Test cricket. He was the only cricketer coming from India to be included in an all-time Test World XI to mark the 150th anniversary of Wisden Cricketers.

In addition to numerous awards and nominations he’s earned during his career, this legendary cricket player can also boast being named one of the “Most Influential People in the World” by Time Magazine in 2010.

Donald Bradman

Sir Donald George Bradman, nicknamed “The Don”, was an Australian international cricketer, born on Aug. 27, 1908. This iconic sportsman was regarded as the greatest batsman of all time because of his unmatched batting average of 99.94, which has been cited as the greatest achievement by any sportsperson in any major sport.

As a young boy, Bradman started as a bush cricket player, where he practiced alone with a cricket stump and a golf ball. By the age of 22, Bradman had set several records, of which some still stand. Unsurprisingly, Bradman became an Australian sporting idol. Even after he stopped appearing in public as he aged, he retained his status as a national icon, and his opinion was highly sought after. In 1997, the prime minister of Australia, John Howard, called him the “greatest living Australian”, and in 2009, nine years after his death, he was posthumously inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.