Three Bangladeshi cricketers—Test and T20 Captain Shakib Al Hasan, ODI captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza and former national captain cum wicket-keeper batsman Mushfiqur Rahim have been featured in the ESPN World Fame 100 sports personalities list.
The three Bangladesh cricketers along six Indian stalwarts including batting sensation Virat Kohli have added another feather to their hat as ESPN’s released its World Fame 100 sports personalities on Mar 13 featuring them, reports UNB.
Virat Kohli and Shakib Al Hasan are two of the most sought-after players in the cricketing world currently.
Both have ruled the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) rankings for a chunk of their careers and have been indispensable members of the national team.
In the ensuing 2019 ICC World Cup, scheduled to start on May 30 in England and Wales, will be the next massive assignments for the two stalwarts.
The 30-year-old Virat is in the 7th position after bagging the 11th position back in 2018. However, Shakib, the experienced Bangladesh all-round cricketer made his first entry and was played 90th in the elite list.
Apart from Virat and Shakib, nine more cricketers were named in the list. Among Indians, MS Dhoni (13), Yuvraj Singh (18), Suresh Raina (22), Rohit Sharma (46), Harbhajan Singh (74), Ravi Ashwin (42) and Shikhar Dhawan (94) also made their way.
In fact, all of them were also there in 2018. AB de Villiers and Gautam Gambhir missed out this time around after featuring in 2018.
From Bangladesh, apart from the dynamic Shakib, ODI captain Mashrafe Mortaza (98) and wicketkeeper-batsman Mushfiqur Rahim (92) made their first appearance.
Surprisingly, there wasn’t any cricketer from the other countries. The list is headed by the evergreen Christiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese footballer, who is currently plying his trade for Juventus, heads the list.
Ronaldo also perched at the helm of the list in 2018. The 100 names were shortlisted from 800 of the biggest names in the sports fraternity from 78 nations.
Thereafter, a formula was applied wherein the search scores on Google, the endorsement dollars, from Forbes to ESPN contributors, and social media followers of each player were considered before zeroing in on the final 100 sports personalities.