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Cricketers who have played other sports with distinction

tyron_woodley

T20I Debutant
Joined
Jun 26, 2019
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6,322
I found this recently and I was impressed. Being elite at multiple sports is very commendable. Shows the athletic ability of these players. True A level athletes.


For England: CB Fry, Andy Ducat, RE ‘Tip’ Foster, Harry Makepeace, Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, Leslie Gay, Harold ‘Wally’ Hardinge, Albert Knight, Jack Arnold, William Gunn, Jack Sharp, Sir Charles Aubrey Smith, Willie Watson and Arthur Milton.

Foster captained England in both cricket and football. Watson represented England in the 1950 Soccer World Cup. Sir Charles Aubrey Smith later made a name for himself as a stage and movie actor.

For South Africa: Gordon White, John ‘Mick’ Commaille and Sid O’Lynn.

For New Zealand: Ken Hough represented New Zealand and Australia in football.

HOCKEY
For Australia: Brian Booth and Trevor Laughlin; Booth represented Australia in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

For South Africa: ‘Jonty’ Rhodes and Russell Endean.

For England and India: Nawab of Pataudi Sr.


For India: MJ Gopalan.

For New Zealand: Edwin McLeod and Keith Thomson.

For Zimbabwe: David Houghton.

TENNIS
For India: Cotar Ramaswami played Davis Cup.

BASEBALL
For Australia: Vic Richardson and Bruce Dooland.

Richardson, the grandfather of Ian, Greg and Trevor Chappell, besides shining for Australia in cricket and baseball, also represented South Australia in golf and tennis. He was prominent at lacrosse and basketball and was a first-rate swimmer.

BADMINTON
For New Zealand: Philip Horne.

Here are some additional tidbits:
* The legendary WG Grace was the national 440-yard hurdles champion and also represented England at bowls.
* England’s Ted Dexter played in the English Amateur Golf Championship.
* Alan Walker was a member of the Australian Wallabies Rugby Union team touring England Britain, France and USA in 1947-48 and the Australian cricket team to South Africa in 1949-50.
* Kepler Wessels was the top junior tennis player for South Africa in 1973.
* Steve and Mark Waugh had represented NSW at cricket, football and tennis when in their teens. They later played football at reserve level for Sydney club Croatia.

Although not an international, the daddy-of-all versatile sportsman was extrovert Bill Alley from New South Wales and Somerset.

He was a blacksmith’s striker, boilermaker, deep-sea fisherman, dance-hall bouncer, professional boxer, an aggressive left-handed batsman who scored 3019 runs for Somerset in 1961 aged 42 and went on to umpire ten cricket Test matches.

In 400 first-class matches for NSW, Somerset and Commonwealth XI from 1945 to 1968, he hit 19,612 runs at 31.88 with 31 centuries (top-score 221 not out). He also took 768 wickets at 22.68 and 293 catches.

Now with cricket going on almost twelve months a year, there has not been a cricketer who has represented his country in another sport in a decade.

But for cricket played all year round, Shane Warne – who knows – could have represented Australia in AFL.

And many cricketers, Ricky Ponting to give a recent example, would have played golf at an international level had it not been for a crowded cricket calendar.
 
Viv Richards played for Antigua and Barbuda at football (in the qualifiers only) and West Indies at cricket
Botham played football for Scunthorpe in Football league.
Curtly Ambrose was pretty much into Basketball but listened to his mother’s advice and said no to a lucrative basketball deal in USA to search a career in cricket.
 
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Rana Naveed was a really good field hockey player, then came to cricket at a late time and did decent

a lot of kiwi cricketers cricket is 2nd sport after they couldnt crack the intnl rugby side
 
Andrew symonds

AB Devilliers could have been pro Tennis
 
His brother Leslie - Arsenal centre half, played for England twice; Middlesex CCC keeper.
 
Joe Hart could have been a Cricketer if not for football.

Gary Neville was also a good Cricketer but chose Football pver Cricket
 
Gary Linekar played FC cricket for Leicestershire. In 1904 Olympics, some English Test Captain won Long Jump Gold, can’t recall the name now. Kapil played soccer for East Bengal, but that could be marketing gimmicks- he was almost 35 then.

At present, I believe Chahal (Leggi) represented his state in national Junior level chess competition.
 
I don’t know there was a guy from an associate nation in 2003 WC who played both the cricket and rugby WC in the same year for his country
 
I don’t know there was a guy from an associate nation in 2003 WC who played both the cricket and rugby WC in the same year for his country

Yes someone from Namibia who represented his country at both Cricket and Rugby World Cup.
 
rsz_gary_neville-1444141852-800.jpg

Mathew Hayden and Gary Neville opening the innings together.

Phil Neville , the twin brother of Gary was the Captain of England Under 15 Cricket team.
 
Denis Compton - Arsenal winger.

that is insane. How talented are these guys. it's crazy. Multi sports. I guess top players in their respective sports can always cross represent in other sports if they apply themselves s because they are just naturally gifted.
 
His brother Leslie - Arsenal centre half, played for England twice; Middlesex CCC keeper.

top tslentsin australia usually play rugby cricket and afl.

I believe carey played afl or rugby prior to playing cricket. He was exceptionally talented in both.
 
that is insane. How talented are these guys. it's crazy. Multi sports. I guess top players in their respective sports can always cross represent in other sports if they apply themselves s because they are just naturally gifted.

While he was certainly very talented, both cricket and football were played at a very low level at that time.

Today, it is not possible for a player to be good enough to play in the Premier League and also make it to international cricket.
 
No offence but ladies don't count. Different level of competition.

Really they don't count.....women play just as professionally as men and the competition is there and all the men you have mentioned tell me one man who represented more than one sport at the highest level in the last 30 years?
 
Carey was playing AFL but when the team was promoted to the national league he was cut as he wasn't good enough. So it is very hard in the professionso era to play more than one sport at elite level. Ellyse Perry who you don't rate has to chose also between the two.
 
How can any one miss the blonde Bombshell Jeff Wilson, an AB rugby player of great distinction and played for NZ at cricket before he played Rugby and retired at the age of 19, only to come back and play again after retiring from Rugby.
 
A friend of mine played hockey with Rana Naveed in the late 80’s & said he was good enough to play at the highest level but chose cricket
 
How can any one miss the blonde Bombshell Jeff Wilson, an AB rugby player of great distinction and played for NZ at cricket before he played Rugby and retired at the age of 19, only to come back and play again after retiring from Rugby.

Was surprised noone had mentioned him yet, although to be fair he only played a handful of international cricket games so most people wouldn't know him
 
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While he was certainly very talented, both cricket and football were played at a very low level at that time.

Today, it is not possible for a player to be good enough to play in the Premier League and also make it to international cricket.

This. You won't see anyone play both premier league and for the English cricket team simply because both sports have become very demanding.
 
Shoaib Malik regularly plays hockey 🏑 against the fast bowlers as well as cricket 🏏 against the spinners.
 
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