5 Players Who Came Out Of Retirement To Play Cricket

Players coming out of retirement to play cricket is a normal vision in the 21st century. The very recent case was with former South African skipper AB De Villiers who said that he is looking to come out of retirement with the T20 World Cup coming up. His form in the IPL since last year made the South African selectors think about calling him back with Graeme Smith playing the lead role.

His return for the big event was almost certain when Cricket South Africa came out with a statement that said that De Villiers will not come out of retirement and that the decision is final.

This broke the heart of millions of his fans who wanted to see him with the bat one more time on the international level. Meanwhile, in this article,?? we take a look at five cricketers who came out of retirement to play for their respective countries.

5 Players Who Came Out Of Retirement To Play Cricket

1) Shahid Afridi

The name that comes first on the list is that of former Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi. he has announced his retirement many times in the past and came out of it and played again. Reports say that he retired five times and came out of it four times previously. he finally called time on his international career in 2017 after playing 27 Tests, 398 ODIs, and 99 T20Is.

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The Windies all-rounder had initially announced his retirement from international cricket in 2018, but came out of it in 2020 and played in the T20I series against Ireland. He has also expressed his desire to play in the next edition of the T20 World Cup. He holds the record for the most wickets in T20 cricket with over 500 scalps. He plays T20 cricket all around the world.

3) Kevin Pietersen

Former England skipper Kevin Pietersen had announced his retirement from ODIs in 2011to focus on Test cricket. However, he later found his niche in the 50-over and the 20-over format and came out of retirement. Pietersen scored 8181 runs in 104 Tests and 4440 in 86 ODIs. His call time on his career on controversial terms in 2018.

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4) Carl Hooper

Former Windies skipper Carl Hooper announced his retirement from cricket ahead of the 1999 World Cup. Two years down the line, he made a U-turn and came out of it in 2001. He led his team again briefly before finally calling time on his cricket career in 2002 after scoring his highest Test score of 233 against India in Guyana. Hooper was the first player to score 5,000 runs, take 100 wickets and pluck 100 catches in international cricket.

5) Imran Khan

Imran Khan culminates the list of cricketers who came out of retirement to play international cricket again. Reports said that Imran had decided to retire after the 2987 World Cup. But after a request from former Pakistan PM Zia-Ul-Haq, he came out of retirement and took his team to the 1992 World Cup win which remained the highlight of his illustrious career.

He ended his career with 88 Test matches, 126 innings and scored 3807 runs at an average of 37.69, including six centuries and 18 fifties.

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