Indian Origin Cricketers Who Played For Other Countries

Cricket is the most popular sport in India, cricketers are among the most famous people of the country. Hence, most athletes who get into the game grow up idolizing cricketers and want to emulate their skills and qualities. But there are many people in India who aspire to become cricketers, but not everyone gets a chance to reach the top.

Thus, they use their skills and translate them to break records and put up the numbers for the other team. Although lack of opportunities is not the only reason, family or other unavoidable reasons may also cause a sportsperson to move to another country to hone their talents. There are many notable Indian-origin cricketers who went on to do business in other countries.

We take a look at such cricketers of Indian origin but played for some other country.

Hashim Amla (South Africa)

Hashim Mohammed Amla is an integral part of the history of South African cricket. He is the only player to score a triple century in Test cricket. Although he was born in Durban (South Africa), his father and grandfather were born in Surat, Gujarat. After this his grandfather went to Durban in connection with business. Since then the family has lived in Durban.

Ish Sodhi (New Zealand)

Here is a spinner who has been in good form of late. Although it is not often talked about, Ish Sodhi has done exceptionally well in T20Is. He has taken 73 wickets at an average of 21 in 57 T20 matches played so far. Very few people would know that Ish Sodhi was born in India only. While other players in this list were born outside India, Sodhi spent three years of his life in the subcontinent. It was 1996 when his family decided to move to New Zealand and he has been living there ever since.

Ish Sodhi has represented New Zealand in all formats. Although his Test career didn’t start well, he has done exceptionally well in ODIs. With all his variations, he is a great wicket-taking option in T20Is.

Ravi Bopara (England)

Nasser Hussain (England)

Renowned cricket commentator and former England captain Nasser Hussain was born in 1968 in Madras (now Chennai). He is a descendant of Muhammad Ali Khan Walajah, the second Nawab of Arcot. In 1975, his family moved to England, where he began training professionally in cricket. He captained the English cricket team in Tests and ODIs and won 45 out of 101 matches.

Jeetan Patel (New Zealand)

While Jeetan Patel’s international career spanned from 2005 to 2017, he was never able to feature in notable games for New Zealand. Jeetan Patel, who has his roots in Gujarat, made his debut in 2005 and played only 24 Tests and 43 ODIs. The right-arm off-spinner took 65 Test wickets at 47.35 and 49 ODI wickets at 34.51.

But Jeetan Patel continued to play county cricket and got many chances for Warwickshire. The 41-year-old has taken 892 wickets in 293 first-class games at an average of 32.77. Patel currently serves as the spin-bowling coach of England.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul (West Indies)

Shivnarine Chanderpaul was born and raised in Unity Village, Guyana. Even his father had seen Guyana for most of his life. But his ancestors were from India before being sent to the West Indies because of the labor system there. He debuted in 1994 and his career spanned 21 years. Too bad that not many people talk about it? He played 164 Tests in his career, which is the 5th most Tests with Indian legend Rahul Dravid.

He was one of the highest run scorers in the entire world and the second highest run scorer for the West Indies. Although his Test run was amazing, he was also very good in ODIs. He scored 8,778 runs at an impressive average of 41.60, scoring over 20k runs in both the formats combined.

Monty Panesar (England)

Keshav Maharaj (South Africa)

Maharaj is currently South Africa’s leading red-ball spinner and is second in the list of South African Test spinners with the most wickets. He has also recently captained the Proteas in white-ball cricket. Keshav may have been born in Durban, but his roots are from India. His father Atmanand is a South African of Indian origin, who played for Natal in his early days and had dreams of representing South Africa, but could not do so due to the apartheid regime. Yet one can say that his son has fulfilled the family’s dream.

Stuart Clark (Australia)

Stuart Clark’s career was not very long. But when he played for Australia, he did very well as a fast bowler. He picked up cricket very late in his career as he was a real estate agent before deciding to go full-time as a cricketer. He made his debut at the age of 30 and stayed in international cricket for about four years. During this, he was only six wickets short of a century in Test matches. Had he started his career a bit earlier, he could have rivaled any of Australia’s great fast bowlers in terms of stats, he was very consistent.

Clarke’s father was born and raised in Chennai and her mother is also of Indian descent. In this playing XI, he makes a great pair with Rampaul as a fast bowler. It is easy to tell from the bounce he used to take from the pitch that he would trouble any batsman in the world on his given day.

Ravi Rampaul (West Indies)

The cricketer has represented Trinidad and Tobago in youth cricket. He is of Indian descent like the other names on this list. His ancestors were from Punjab while he was born and brought up in England. Ravi Rampaul’s career-defining performance came against India in the 2011 World Cup. He took five wickets in the match, including the wicket of Sachin Tendulkar. Apart from this, his ODI career has been very good.

He could play only 18 matches in Test cricket and could not take five wickets in a single match. He also performed well as a batsman and his highest score was 86 not out.