Throughout the history of cricket there have been people who were special, who were slightly different from their fellow cricketers and made the crowd sit up every time they stepped onto the pitch. Of course, every game has its heroes and cricket is no exception. And each nation has its own cricket legends who they think were better than other teams. This article will introduce you to 9 of the world’s greatest cricketers of the past and present.
Imran Kahn was a great Pakistani cricketer who played at the highest level for more than twenty years since his debut in 1971. He was a great player who led the Pakistani team to their first world cup just before he retired. Always graceful in both action and speech, he was one of the best all-rounders the game has ever had. He is now a politician in Pakistan and the leader of a major political party. He played in 88 tests with a batting average of 37.69. He took 362 wickets with an excellent bowling average of 22.81.
Shane Warne is an Australian spin bowler who is one of the best spin bowlers I have ever seen, if not the best. He was born in 1969 in Victoria and has played Test cricket since 1990, retiring in 2007. He has taken more Test wickets than any other player in history. He was also the first player to take over 600 test wickets. He played in 140 tests and has taken 685 wickets with a bowling average of 25.25.
Gary Sobers was a highly talented cricketer who was born in Barbados in 1936. He played 93 Tests for the West Indies and scored an impressive 8,032 runs. He had a batting average of 57.78. He was also a very good left-arm slow pitcher, taking 235 Test wickets, averaging 34.03. He is best known for being the first batsman to score six in one sixes in 1968 in a first class cricket match while playing for Notts against Glamorgan.
Ian Botham was a great English all-rounder. He was the scavenger of bowlers with his prodigious batting ability and was about as skilled as a medium paced fast bowler. He was born in Cheshire in 1955 and played mainly for Somerset. He was very much a true all-rounder, as he was just as good at bowling as he was at batting. He played in 102 Test matches and scored 5,200 runs at an average of 33.34 and took 383 wickets at an average of 28.40.
WG Grace is thought by many to be the most influential cricketer the game has ever seen. He was born in 1848 at a time when cricket was not the mainstream sport that it is today. He is one of the reasons, with his great batting ability, that cricket became so popular. Once, when he struck out the first pitch in a game, he refused to go and tell the umpire that “the crowd is here to see me hit and not to see you umpire!” There weren’t many test games then, so he played only 22 and scored 1098 runs at an average of 32.29. He took 9 wickets at an average of 26.22. This average is low even though he was playing until he was fifty years old!
Allan Border was born in 1955 in Sydney and was an Australian captain. He still holds the world record for the most uninterrupted test matches. He also held the record, at the time, for the most Test match runs with 11,174 in 156 Tests. He was also one of the most prolific batsmen of the centuries with 27 in test matches. He also took 39 wickets at an average of 39.10.
Shaun Pollock is a South African fast-medium shooter known for his accuracy and reliability. He is also a very good batsman who has scored over 3406 runs in 100 Test matches at an average of 31.24. He has taken 395 wickets at an average of 23.25. He is South Africa’s most prodigious wicket-taker in both international and one-day Test matches.
Viv Richards is one of the all-time greats of West Indies cricket. He was a very successful captain in one of the greatest West Indies teams of all time. He was a power hitter and averaged 50.23, scoring 8,450 runs in 121 games. He only lost 8 games out of the 50 he captained.
Don Bradman was born in 1908 in New South Wales and was not only the greatest Australian, he is considered by many to be the greatest batsman of all time. His batting ability was so good that the England cricket team in the 1928-29 Tests resorted to bowling on batsmen instead of wickets to try and win. This was known as the bodyline series. The dispute over this was so bad that it almost caused a diplomatic dispute between England and Australia. He played in 52 tests and scored 6996 runs for an incredible average of 99.94. These statistics make him the best batsman of all time.
