Top 5 Indian Cricketers With Longest ODI Careers

Indian cricketers have tasted a lot of success in international cricket. Success is not synonymous to a long career always. It could also mean the kind of impact a player has left in the number of years he has served the sport. There have been incident in the Indian cricket team where players have endured a long and successful career while some have waited awfully long to announce their retirement, even though, they have not been a part of the team.

Let us have a look at the top five Indian cricketers with longest ODI careers:

5. Kapil Dev

Kapil Dev will always be remembered as the first Indian captain to led the national team to a World Cup triumph. He was athletic and one of the greatest match-winners of the game. He could bat, bowl and field and by his own admission was a greater athlete than Ian Botham or Richard Hadlee.

Kapil Dev was also the most valuable player for India during their 1983 World Cup triumph. The greatest India all-rounder had a successful career of 16 years and 16 days. During this time he featured in 225 matches.

4. Yuvraj Singh

Yuvraj Singh retired last year and yet fans seem to have not got enough of their hero. Yuvraj Singh, out of favour from the national team, had decided to call time on his glittering career on June 10, 2019 at a specially arranged press conference in Mumbai. It was his last press conference as a player!

Yuvraj Singh was instrumental for India in the 2007 T20 World Cup and who can forget his all-round role in 2011 World Cup for which he was named the man-of-the-series. He was once the poster boy of  Indian cricket team and brought down the curtains on his career spanning for 16 years and 27 days and 304 matches.

After his retirement, he plied his trade in the Global T20 Canada League, after obtaining NOC from the cricket board. He had captained the Toronto side and is still eager to play in T20 leagues across the globe.

3. Anil Kumble

Anil Kumble was one the greatest spinners to have played the game. He gained immense success with his variations as a leg-spinner and also led the Indian side briefly. Kumble made his ODI debut in the year 1990 and went on to represent the side till 2007, in a career spanning over 16 years and 328 days. During this time, he picked up 271 wickets for the national team.

2. Harbhajan Singh

Harbhajan Singh has aged like a fine wine. Once the flag-bearer of Indian spin bowling, the veteran is still eyeing to make a return for the national team, after having played his last international match in 2016. Away from the international circuit, Harbhajan Singh has plied his trade for two most successful teams in the IPL – Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Mumbai Indians (MI) – and continues to be a regular in the lucrative tournament.

1. Sachin Tendulkar

Not everyday you find a cricketer who has a 24-year-old long and successful International career until he is Sachin Tendulkar. However, Sachin Tendulkar played a total of 463 ODIs in a span of 22 years and 91 days. Sachin Tendulkar was short but he would bully the ‘tallest’ bowlers of the era. It was the Sachin Tendulkar-era. He was a nightmare many bowlers would often refer as difficult to dislodge. At his numbers justify his status.

The 47-year-old continues to be the leading run-scorer in in international cricket with 34, 357 runs — 15,921 in Tests, 18426 in ODIs and 10 from a solitary T20I.