Former Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh, who took retirement from international cricket last year, could come out of his retirement and he may play domestic cricket for Punjab next season.
However, this isn’t the first time a cricketer made a comeback after coming out of his retirement. Here, in this article, we bring you a list of 5 cricketers who made their comeback soon after retiring from the game. Have a look:
5. Shahid Afridi:
Former Pakistani cricketer, Shahid Afridi holds the record for retiring the most number of times. It was the first time in 2010 when he decided to quit from the international cricket. Interestingly, he was made the skipper of Test cricket a day before he called it quits. The reason behind that was his lack of form and inability to play the longer version of the game.
His second retirement came right after he led the Pakistan cricket team to the semi-finals of World Cup 2011.
His third retirement came after he was replaced by Misbah-ul-Haq as the skipper of the Pakistan cricket team, citing differences with the coach Waqar.
Though he has retired from ODI cricket, but he is yet to retire from the T20 format of the game.
4. Kevin Pietersen:
It was in the year 2011, when KP, who is regarded as England’s greatest modern batsman, announced his retirement from limited-formats of the game. KP had issues with ECB and coach Peter Moores. However, just after a few months after his retirement, KP announced his comeback saying that he is committed to playing cricket for England in all the forms of the game. Unfortunately, his relationship with the ECB never really recovered.
3. Imran Khan:
The most successful skippers of the Pakistan cricket team — Imran Khan, first hanged his boots from the game of cricket after the 1987 World Cup. But Pakistan’s President, Zia Ul Haq insisted him to make a comeback to the game, and on popular demand, Imran Khan finally made his comeback in the year 1992, at the age of 39. His comeback is regarded as the most successful comeback in the cricket history as he went on to achieve many milestones for the Pakistan cricket team including their first and only World Cup victory.
2. Carl Hooper:
Carl Hooper is the first cricketer in cricket history to have scored 5000 runs and has taken 100 wickets, held 100 catches, and received 100 caps in both Tests and ODIs. He left everyone stunned when he announced his retirement suddenly and that too before the World Cup.
However, in the year 2001, Carl came back from retirement in 2001 at a time when the West Indies cricket team was going through a tough time. He later also led his team to the World Cup 2013. Unfortunately, when the West Indies didn’t perform well, he was replaced by the selectors.
1. Javed Miandad:
Javed Miandad, who is often defined as the greatest batsman produced by Pakistan, has captained the Pakistan cricket team on many occassions. Miandad holds the record of being the first player to have played in six World Cups. Miandad is the cricketer who has retired for the shortest amount of time before he finally made his comeback. Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto convinced him to make his comeback after 10 days he announced his retirement.
