It takes a huge time to become a legendary cricketer. All the legendary cricketers probably have one common point, and it is their endless passion for the game. In simpler words, cricket is their life.
The legendary cricketers were undoubtedly one of the proudest points for their respective nations. Though their presence always boosted the morale of respective teams, some legends’ careers might not finish very brightly.
However, the main reasons for their lustreless finish in cricket career were mostly the factors of being overage and not-about meeting the fitness standard.
Due to their unchanging passion, those legends took much time before taking their retirement decisions. Even some of their retirement choices came basically by force, not by choice.
Here we are talking about the five legendary cricketers who unnecessarily stretched their international careers.
(Special Note: Here we have included only those legends who already retired from the international cricket)
Ricky Ponting (Australia)
There is no doubt that the former Australian World Cup-winning captain Ricky Ponting was one of the greatest batsmen and leaders of all time. While Australia won two consecutive World Cups under his leadership apart from many other successes in international cricket, his batting was always useful as he was one of the special batsmen in his generation.
In his entire international career, Ponting scored 27,483 runs in 560 matches (average 45.95). The right-handed batsman hit 71 international centuries which are still the second most number of centuries in international cricket history.
Though Ponting was always useful for his team, he wasn’t consistent enough with the bat in his late international career. This regular struggle already started in late 2010, and it continued until late 2012, which was the end of his international career. It was the time when there was a big chance to get dropped from the playing XI.