Most Famous Cricketer in the World

Sachin Tendulkar

Hailed as the best cricketer in the world, Sachin Tendulkar was both blessed and cursed to play for a nation where cricketers are hero-worshipped and criticised with equal intensity. Hence, to carry an entire nation’s expectations from his Test debut in 1989 to his last match in 2013, and be the best batsman on the side for all three decades is unfathomable.

Tendulkar’s biggest success was perhaps carrying the weight of Indian fans' expectations with solo performances that would live on forever. Amongst Tendulkar's many legendary innings that left a lasting impression stands two - his incredible unbeaten double century in India’s 2010 clash with South Africa and his Coca-Cola Champions Trophy campaign in Sharjah in 1998, where he had first showed that he could win a match single-handedly. It was fondly labelled as the "Desert Storm" innings.

In Test matches, Tendulkar has scored an incredible 15,921 runs, while in One Day Internationals (ODIs) his tally is 18,426 runs. With 51 Test and 49 ODI centuries under his belt, he is the only player to have hundred hundreds across multiple international formats.  Tendulkar was the first player to reach 10,000 ODI runs and also the first to score a double century in the same format. 

MS Dhoni

The only Indian captain to have won all the ICC trophies, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is fondly called  "Captain Cool," for his ability to be objective in the tightest of situations in a match. An unconventional wicketkeeper-batsman and strategic leader, Dhoni’s international career spanned from 2004 to 2019 and is an example for all aspiring cricketers and cricket captains.

His leadership skills reached their pinnacle during the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup when he led his country to their first ICC ODI World Cup title after a gap of 28 years. His astute on-field decisions were one of the significant reasons that players like Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and many others retired with a World Cup under their belt.

Amassing 10,773 ODI runs and 4,876 Test runs, Dhoni’s best innings was perhaps the iconic 91-run knock in the 2011 World Cup final against Sri Lanka. Apart from this, his tactical brilliance as a young captain was also on full display during the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, which was also the last time India won that tournament.

Apart from holding the unique record of winning the World Cup, World Twenty20, and the Champions Trophy as a captain, Dhoni also tops the list of batsmen with most not-outs in ODIs, most of which India ended up winning.

Virat Kohli

A modern-day batting maestro, who is also called the Chase Master and the king of cricket, Virat Kohli is the cricketer with more fans than anyone else today as well as the most popular athlete from the Asian continent on social media. Though he hasn’t been India’s sole batting hope in the side like Tendulkar, his iconic knocks like the 183 against Pakistan in the 2012 Asia Cup, the unbeaten 133 versus Sri Lanka during the 2011 Commonwealth Bank Series or the more recent unbeaten 82 against Pakistan in the 2022 T20 World Cup, are all immortalized.

Having an unparalleled and insatiable hunger for runs, Kohli has tallied 8676 runs in Test cricket, 13848 runs in ODIs and 4008 runs in T20Is. Apart from being the highest run scorer in T20I cricket, Kohli has also surpassed Tendulkar in the ODI century tally with 50 tons. He also has 29 Test centuries.

Cricket hasn’t witnessed consistency and fitness like Virat Kohli before and it reached its peak in the 2018 calendar year when he tallied 2,500 runs in international cricket across all formats. He was also a brilliant captain for India, under whom India spent 42 months as the world's number 1 Test team. Kohli’s career is littered with unique records; the most stunning among them being him reaching 8,000, 9,000, 10,000, and 11,000 ODI runs as the fastest batsman.

AB de Villiers

One of the very few players to enjoy fandom from all cricketing countries across the world, AB de Villiers has made a name for himself through a unique blend of explosive batting and innovative shot selection at all parts of the ground, which earned him the label of “Mr. 360”.

One of the most dynamic cricketers to ever play the game, De Villiers has tallied 8765 Test runs, 9577 ODI runs and 1672 T20I runs. A middle-order batsman, the South African’s impact can’t be seen in his run tally but his number of centuries. De Villiers boasts of 22 Test centuries and 25 ODI centuries, an extraordinary feat for someone who has batted in every position ranging from an opener to the eighth.

Among his iconic knocks top two - an unbeaten 278 against Pakistan in 2010, which is still the highest individual score by a South African batsman, and his 66-ball 162 not out against West Indies during the 2015 World Cup. De Villiers excelled in understanding the need of the hour and rising to the occasion.

He holds the record for the fastest ODI century, which came in 31 balls in 2015, at a World Cup game. Apart from this, the prolific batsman has also scored the fastest fifty and 150 in ODIs. A batting prototype, whose second sample is yet to come, AB de Villiers' impact on cricket is way beyond statistics.

Chris Gayle

Yet another cricketer, like Kohli and De Villiers, Chris Gayle redefined batting in the early 1990s, He earned fans worldwide through his brutal hitting while being flamboyant all the while. Popularly called the “Universe Boss”, the West Indian legend Jas tallied 7,214 runs in Test matches, 10,480 runs in ODIs and 1899 runs in T20Is.

One of the most feared batsmen in cricket, Gayle has 15 Test centuries and 25 ODI centuries to his name. While his batting style makes him an almost perfect batsman for ODIs and T20Is, Gayle has proven on multiple occasions that he holds an equally suitable temperament for red-ball cricket. A few examples of that are his 333 runs against Sri Lanka in 2010, which is the highest individual Test score by a West Indian to date, and the iconic, match-saving 165-run knock in 2009 against Australia at the Adelaide Oval, where the southpaw batted almost seven-and-a-half hours.

Gayle, however, became famous for his tremendous exploits in the T20 format, where he is the highest scorer in an innings with an unbeaten 175 in the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2013. His 117 runs off 57 balls in the 2016 T20 World Cup against England was one of the best knocks in T20I World Cup history.

The Caribbean superstar is the only player to score a triple century in Test cricket, a double ton in ODIs, and a century in T20 internationals. His batting style made him the first freelancer in T20 cricket as he went around playing in numerous T20 leagues worldwide.