A sportspersons life is full of ups and downs. A sport like cricket requires heavy duty performance and consistency over the years. However, few out of the box thinkers completely changed their careers after retiring from cricket and their post-retirement job had no relation to their pre-retirement life. In today’s article we’ll discuss five such cricketers who changed their profession completely after retirement from international cricket.
The first name in the list is of ex Indian player, Salil Ankola. Ankola’s career never really took off as he played just a solitary Test and 20 ODIs and his performances were quite ordinary and mediocre. He was one of the rare players who made his debut along with Sachin Tendulkar. Ankola was in and out of the side and never really cemented a place in the Indian team. He then decided to shift his focus towards acting and made his Bollywood debut in 2000 and even though Ankola has acted in just 7 movies so far, he has acted in several television shows and has been quite successful.
The second name in the list is of English veteran Andrew Flintoff. Flintoff, also known as Freddie, is one of England’s leading all-rounders and a player who cannot be portrayed, only based on statistics. Flintoff had been acknowledged as the top international all-rounder in both the Test and ODI formats and is one of the biggest players of English Cricket history. Since his retirement, he became a pro-boxer in 2012 and beat American boxer, Richard Dawson. Flintoff has also written autobiographies such as Being Freddie, Ashes to Ashes, Good Times, Bad Times, etc. He has been involved in the real estate business too over the years.
The third name in the list is of Imran Khan. Imran is probably one of the biggest cricketers in the history of Pakistan cricket and is the one who led them to a famous World Cup win in 1992. He is highly regarded as a master tactician and skipper who knew how to win big tournaments. Post his retirement, in 2018, he became the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan and made history. Imran who had leadership traits from the beginning of his career made a successful transition from cricket to politics. The people of Pakistan loved him when he played cricket and continue doing the same in politics too.
The fourth name in the list is of Nathan Astle. In a career that spanned 12 years, Astle played 81 Tests and 223 ODIs accumulating 4,702 and 7,090 runs respectively. He was New Zealand’s second-most prolific run scorer and also collected 154 wickets with his medium-paced bowling at the international level. Astle, who has also played football for Rangers A.F.C in Christchurch, tried his hand at auto racing after retirement and was quite successful at it, too. In 2010, Astle finished third in the South Island Sprint Car Championship. He claimed that he always had an interest in auto racing but could not do it because of his cricket career and thus decided to go back to it post retirement.
The fifth and the last name in the list is of Navjot Singh Sidhu. Sidhu was one of the most aggressive and prolific batsman of his time and had earned a lot of praises for his quickfire batting approach. Sidhu might have had fallen short of expectations in his cricket career but his post-cricket career was quite a hit. Be it his famous one-liners as a cricket commentator or his laugh riot as a comedy show judge, Sidhu was in political demand too after retirement as he turned politician in 2004 when he contested the Lok Shabha election for BJP. Sidhu is currently an active member of the Indian national congress.
