top cricket batsman in the world

Sri Lankan international cricketer and a former captain of the Sri Lankan national team, widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of his generation. A left handed top order batsman, for much of his career he also played as a wicket keeper, although he no longer keeps wicket at Test level.Along with AB de Villiers, he has dominated the number one spot in the ICC Test batting rankings over the past decade. As of January 2015, Kumar Sangakkara is placed at number 1 in ICC test rankings.

He captained the West Indies Test side from 2007 to 2010. He plays domestic cricket for Jamaica, and also represents the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League, the Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash League and the Dhaka Gladiators in the Bangladesh Premier League. He has also represented Worcestershire, the Western Warriors, Barisal Burners and the Kolkata Knight Riders in his career. He was also selected for team Uva Next for the inaugural Sri Lanka Premier League in 2012.

He is one of only four players who have scored two triple centuries at Test level 317 against South Africa in 2005, and 333 against Sri Lanka in 2010. He is known as a big hitter, very often hitting sixes; in 2012 he became the first player to hit a six off the first ball of a Test match. Playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore, he scored a 30 ball century, the fastest across any format, that became the highest individual T20 score 175 not out.It eclipsed the previous mark set by Brendan McCullum of Kolkata Knight Riders. At the launch of the Caribbean Premier League he was announced as the first franchise player for the league.

Yuvraj Singh is an Indian international cricketer. He is an all rounder who bats left handed in the middle order and bowls slow left arm orthodox. He is the son of former Indian fast bowler and Punjabi actor Yograj Singh. Yuvraj has been a member of the Indian cricket team in ODIs since 2000 and played his first Test match in 2003. He was the vice captain of the Indian ODI team between 2007 2008. He was the Man of the Tournament in the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, and one of the top performers at the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, both of which India won. In a match against England at the 2007 World Twenty20, he famously hit six sixes in one over bowled by Stuart Broad a feat performed only three times previously in any form of senior cricket, and never in an international match between two Test cricket teams.

Sunil Manohar Sunny Gavaskar About this sound pronunciation is a former cricketer who played during the 1970s and 1980s for the Bombay cricket team and India. Widely regarded as one of the greatest opening batsmen in cricket history, Gavaskar set world records during his career for the most Test runs and most Test centuries scored by any batsman. He held the record of 34 Test centuries for almost two decades before it was broken by Sachin Tendulkar in December 2005.Gavaskar was widely admired for his technique against fast bowling, with a particularly high average of 65.45 against the West Indies, who possessed a four pronged fast bowling attack regarded as the most vicious in Test history. His captaincy of the Indian team, however, was less successful. There were incidents like crowd displeasure at Eden Gardens in Calcutta leading to multiple matches being disrupted, in response to the poor performance of the Indian team. Turbulent performances of the team led to multiple exchanges of captaincy between Gavaskar and Kapil Dev, with one of Gavaskars sackings coming just six months before Kapil led India to victory at the 1983 Cricket World Cup.

Kevin Peter Pietersen, MBE born 27 June 1980 is a South African born English cricketer. He is a right handed batsman and occasional off spin bowler who formerly played for England and currently plays for Surrey as well as Twenty20 in the Indian Premier League for Delhi Daredevils , in the Caribbean Premier League for St Lucia Zouksand in the Big Bash League for Melbourne Stars.

Pietersen was born in Pietermaritzburg, Natal Province, South Africa. He made his first class debut for Natal in 1997 before moving to England, after voicing his displeasure at the racial quota system in place in South Africa.His English mother made him eligible to play for England and after serving a qualifying period of four years playing at county level, he was called up almost immediately into the national side. He made his international debut in the One Day International match against Zimbabwe in 2004.and his Test match debut in the 2005 Ashes series against Australia the following year.

He is known for his aggressive batting style, and previously held the record for the fastest ODI century i.e.in 37 deliveries,Now broken by Corey Anderson who took one delivery less i.e.36 deliveries which he made in his first international innings, as well as scoring 32 runs in a single over, the third highest scoring over ever in an ODI. He also holds the distinction of having hit the most number of sixes in the history of ODI cricket.Afridi considers himself a better bowler than batsman, and has taken 48 Test wickets and over 350 in ODIs. Currently Afridi is third on the list of leading wicket takers in the Twenty20F format, behind Saeed Ajmal and Umer Gul of Pakistan, taking 73 wickets from 70 matches.Shahid Afridi has signed to play for Sydney Thunder in Australias Twenty20 Big Bash league.In June 2009, Afridi took over the Twenty20 captaincy from Younus Khan, and was later appointed ODI captain for the 2010 Asia Cup. In his first match as ODI captain against Sri Lanka he scored a century however Pakistan still lost by 16 runs. He then also took over the Test captaincy but resigned after one match in charge citing lack of form and ability to play Test cricket; at the same time he announced his retirement from Tests. He retained the captaincy in limited overs form of the game and led the team in the 2011 World Cup. In May 2011, having led Pakistan in 34 ODIs, Afridi was replaced as captain. Later that month he announced his conditional retirement from international cricket in protest against his treatment by the Pakistan Cricket Board PCB. However, in October he reversed his decision. UNICEF and Pakistani authorities have taken Shahid Afridi on board for its anti polio campaign in the tribal belt of lawless Waziristan region.

Kapil was a right arm pace bowler noted for his graceful action and potent outswinger, and was Indias main strike bowler for most of his career. He also developed a fine inswinging yorker during the 1980s, which he used very effectively against tail enders. As a batsman, he was a natural striker of the ball who could hook and drive effectively. A naturally aggressive player, he often helped India in difficult situations by taking the attack to the opposition. Nicknamed The Haryana Hurricane, he represented the Haryana cricket team in domestic cricket. He retired in 1994, holding the world record for the most number of wickets taken in Test cricket, a record subsequently broken by Courtney Walsh in 2000. At the time, he was also Indias highest wicket taker in both major forms of cricket, Tests and ODIs. He is the only player in the history of cricket to have taken more than 400 wickets 434 wickets and scored more than 5,000 runs in Tests,making him one of the greatest all rounders to have played the game. On 8 March 2010, Kapil Dev was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

Matthew Lawrence Hayden AM born 29 October 1971 is a former Australian cricketer. Hayden was a powerful and aggressive left handed opening batsman, known for his ability to score quickly at both Test and one day levels.Hayden holds the record for the highest score made by an Australian batsman in Tests 380. He formed one of the most prolific opening partnerships in world Test cricket for Australia with Justin Langer, and in ODI cricket with Adam Gilchrist. Upon his retirement, in January 2009, Haydens Test average was 50.7; he had scored the second most runs in Test Cricket by an opening batsman; and was equal 6th with Jacques Kallis on the all time list for Test centuries.

Shikhar Dhawan born 5 December 1985 is an Indian international cricketer. He is a left handed opening batsman and occasional right arm off break bowler. He played for the Indian Under 17 and Under 19 teams and was the leading run scorer at the 2004 ICC Under 19 Cricket World Cup. He made his first class debut for Delhi in November 2004.Dhawan made his One Day International ODI debut against Australia in October 2010 at Visakhapatnam. His Test debut came against the same opposition in March 2013 at Mohali where he scored the fastest century by any batsman on Test debut 85 balls. He ended his innings with 187 runs from 174 balls. He was the leading run scorer and the Man of the Tournament of 2013 ICC Champions Trophy in England, which India won. In August 2013, he recorded the then second highest individual score in a List A match when he scored 248 runs off 150 balls for India A against South Africa A at Pretoria.In November 2014, he became the fastest Indian batsman to reach the 2000 run mark in ODIs.