The Most Famous

CRICKETERS from Australia

This page contains a list of the greatest Australian Cricketers. The pantheon dataset contains 136 Cricketers, 16 of which were born in Australia. This makes Australia the birth place of the 2nd most number of Cricketers.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Australian Cricketers of all time. This list of famous Australian Cricketers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Australian Cricketers.

1. Don Bradman (1908 - 2001)

With an HPI of 51.22, Don Bradman is the most famous Australian Cricketer. His biography has been translated into 54 different languages on wikipedia.

Sir Donald George Bradman (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), nicknamed "The Don", was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. His cricketing successes have been claimed by Shane Warne, among others, as making Bradman the "greatest sportsperson" in history. Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 is considered by some to be the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport. The story that the young Bradman practised alone with a cricket stump and a golf ball is part of Australian folklore. His meteoric rise from bush cricket to the Australian Test team took just over two years. Before his 22nd birthday, he had set many records for top-scoring, some of which still stand, and became Australia's sporting idol at the height of the Great Depression. This hero status grew and continued through the Second World War. During a 20-year playing career, Bradman consistently scored at a level that made him, in the words of former Australia captain Bill Woodfull, "worth three batsmen to Australia". A controversial set of tactics, known as Bodyline, was specially devised by the England team to curb his scoring. As a captain and administrator, Bradman was committed to attacking, entertaining cricket; he drew spectators in record numbers. He hated the constant adulation, however, and it affected how he dealt with others. The focus of attention on Bradman's individual performances strained relationships with some teammates, administrators and journalists, who thought him aloof and wary. Following an enforced hiatus due to the Second World War, he made a dramatic comeback, captaining an Australian team known as "The Invincibles" on a record-breaking unbeaten tour of England. A complex and highly driven man, not given to close personal relationships, Bradman retained a pre-eminent position in the game by acting as an administrator, selector and writer for three decades following his retirement. Even after he became reclusive in his declining years, Bradman's opinion was highly sought, and his status as a national icon was still recognised. Almost fifty years after his retirement as a Test player, in 1997, Prime Minister John Howard called him the "greatest living Australian". Bradman's image has appeared on postage stamps and coins, and a museum dedicated to his life was opened while he was still living. On the centenary of his birth, 27 August 2008, the Royal Australian Mint issued a $5 commemorative gold coin with Bradman's image. In 2009, he was inducted posthumously as an inaugural member into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

2. Shane Warne (1969 - 2022)

With an HPI of 38.96, Shane Warne is the 2nd most famous Australian Cricketer. His biography has been translated into 39 different languages.

Shane Keith Warne (13 September 1969 – 4 March 2022) was an Australian international cricketer whose career ran from 1992 to 2007. Widely considered to be one of the greatest cricketers of all time, Warne played as a right-arm leg spin bowler and a lower-order right-handed batsman for Victoria, Hampshire, the Melbourne Stars and Australia. Warne also played for and coached the Rajasthan Royals, including captaining the team to victory in the inaugural season of the IPL. He made 145 Test appearances, taking 708 wickets, and set the record for the most wickets taken by any bowler in Test cricket, a record he held until 2007. Warne was a useful lower-order batsman who scored more than 3,000 Test runs, with a highest score of 99. Warne was a member of the Australian team that won the 1999 Cricket World Cup. He retired from international cricket at the end of Australia's 2006–07 Ashes series victory over England. Warne revolutionised cricket thinking with his mastery of leg spin, then regarded as a dying art. After retirement, he regularly worked as a cricket commentator and for charities and endorsed commercial products. During his career, Warne was involved in off-field scandals including a ban from cricket for testing positive for a prohibited substance, a colourful personal life and interactions with gambling figures. Warne died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 52, while on holiday in Thailand. After his death, many tributes and memorials were made to Warne, both in his home city of Melbourne and elsewhere in the cricketing world. Warne was posthumously appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his service to cricket.

3. Ian Chappell (b. 1943)

With an HPI of 35.69, Ian Chappell is the 3rd most famous Australian Cricketer. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Ian Michael Chappell (born 26 September 1943) is a former cricketer who played for South Australia and Australia. Known as "Chappelli", he is considered as one of the greatest captains the game has seen. He captained Australia between 1971 and 1975 before taking a central role in the breakaway World Series Cricket organisation. Born into a cricketing family—his grandfather and brother also captained Australia—Chappell made a hesitant start to international cricket playing as a right-hand middle-order batsman and spin bowler. He found his niche when promoted to bat at number three. Chappell's blunt verbal manner led to a series of confrontations with opposition players and cricket administrators; the issue of sledging first arose during his tenure as captain, and he was a driving force behind the professionalisation of Australian cricket in the 1970s. He was the captain of the Australian squad which finished as runners-up at the 1975 Cricket World Cup. John Arlott called him "a cricketer of effect rather than the graces". An animated presence at the batting crease, he constantly adjusted his equipment and clothing, and restlessly tapped his bat on the ground as the bowler ran in. Basing his game on a sound defence learned during many hours of childhood lessons, Chappell employed the drive and square cut to full effect. He had an idiosyncratic method of playing back and across to a ball of full length and driving wide of mid-on, but his trademark shot was the hook, saying "three bouncers an over should be worth 12 runs to me". A specialist slip fielder, he was the fourth player to take one hundred Test catches. Since his retirement in 1980, he has pursued a high-profile career as a sports journalist and cricket commentator, predominantly with Channel Nine. He remains a key figure in Australian cricket: in 2006, Shane Warne called Chappell the biggest influence on his career. Chappell was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1986, the FICA Cricket Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2003. On 9 July 2009, Ian Chappell was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

4. Allan Border (b. 1955)

With an HPI of 32.31, Allan Border is the 4th most famous Australian Cricketer. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Allan Robert Border (born 27 July 1955) is an Australian cricket commentator and former international cricketer. A batsman, Border was for many years the captain of the Australian team, and led his team to victory in the 1987 Cricket World Cup, the maiden world title for Australia. His playing nickname was "A.B.". He played 156 Test matches in his career, a record until it was passed by fellow Australian Steve Waugh. Border formerly held the world record for the number of consecutive Test appearances of 153, before it was surpassed in June 2018 by Alastair Cook, and is second on the list of number of Tests as captain. He was primarily a left-hand batsman but also had occasional success as a part-time left-arm orthodox spinner. Border amassed 11,174 Test runs (a world record until it was passed by Brian Lara in 2006). He hit 27 centuries in his Test career. He retired as Australia's most-capped player and leading run-scorer in both Tests and ODIs. His Australian record for Test Match runs stood for 15 years before Ricky Ponting overtook him during the Third Ashes Test against England in July 2009. Border was one of the 55 inaugural inductees of the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. In 2009 as part of the Q150 celebrations, Allan Border was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for his role as a "sports legend". In 2016, Border was a recipient of the Queensland Greats Awards. In a fan poll conducted by the CA in 2017, he was named in the country's best Ashes XI in the last 40 years.

5. Richie Benaud (1930 - 2015)

With an HPI of 32.27, Richie Benaud is the 5th most famous Australian Cricketer. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Richard Benaud (; 6 October 1930 – 10 April 2015) was an Australian cricketer who played for New South Wales and Australia. Following his retirement from international cricket in 1964, Benaud became a highly regarded commentator on the game. Benaud was a Test cricket all-rounder, blending leg spin bowling with lower-order batting aggression. Along with fellow bowling all-rounder Alan Davidson, he helped restore Australia to the top of world cricket in the late 1950s and early 1960s after a slump in the early 1950s. In 1958, he became Australia's Test captain until his retirement in 1964. He became the first player to reach 200 wickets and 2,000 runs in Test cricket, reaching the milestone in 1963. Gideon Haigh described him as "perhaps the most influential cricketer and cricket personality since the Second World War." In his review of Benaud's autobiography Anything But, Sri Lankan cricket writer Harold de Andrado wrote: "Richie Benaud possibly next to Sir Don Bradman has been one of the greatest cricketing personalities as player, researcher, writer, critic, author, organiser, adviser and student of the game."

6. Bill Brown (1912 - 2008)

With an HPI of 31.57, Bill Brown is the 6th most famous Australian Cricketer. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

William Alfred Brown, (31 July 1912 – 16 March 2008) was an Australian cricketer who played 22 Test matches between 1934 and 1948, captaining his country in one Test. A right-handed opening batsman, his partnership with Jack Fingleton in the 1930s is regarded as one of the finest in Australian Test history. After the interruption of World War II, Brown was a member of the team dubbed "The Invincibles", who toured England in 1948 without defeat under the leadership of Don Bradman. In a match in November 1947, Brown was the unwitting victim of the first instance of "Mankading". Raised in New South Wales, Brown initially struggled in both work and cricket, before gradually rising through the cricket ranks. He made his first-class debut for New South Wales in the 1932–33 season and forced his way into the national side during the 1934 tour of England. When long-term openers Bill Ponsford and Bill Woodfull retired at the end of the tour, Brown and his state opening partner Fingleton took over. After poor form made his selection for the 1938 tour of England controversial, Brown responded with a total of 1,854 runs, including an unbeaten 206 that saved Australia from defeat in the Second Test, and was honoured as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year. The outbreak of the Second World War cost Brown his peak years, which he spent in the Royal Australian Air Force. Cricket resumed in 1945–46 and Brown, in Bradman's absence, captained an Australian eleven in a match that was retrospectively awarded Test status. Brown missed the entirety of the following season because of injury. Upon his return, he was unable to repeat his previous success and was ousted from the opening positions by Arthur Morris and Sid Barnes. Selected for the Invincibles tour, he performed reasonably well in the tour matches but, with Morris and Barnes entrenched as openers, he batted out of position in the middle order during the first two Tests. He struggled and was dropped from the Test team, never to return. Upon returning to Australia, Brown continued playing for Queensland until the end of the 1949–50 season. In retirement, Brown briefly served as a Test selector and sold cars and, later, sports goods. In 2000, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to cricket. At the time of his death in 2008, he was Australia's oldest Test cricketer.

7. Phillip Hughes (1988 - 2014)

With an HPI of 30.97, Phillip Hughes is the 7th most famous Australian Cricketer. His biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Phillip Joel Hughes (30 November 1988 – 27 November 2014) was an Australian Test and One Day International (ODI) cricketer who played domestic cricket for South Australia and Worcestershire. He was a left-handed opening batsman who played for two seasons with New South Wales before making his Test debut in 2009 at the age of 20. He made his One Day International Debut in 2013. Hughes scored his first Test century in March 2009, aged 20, in his second Test match for Australia, opening the batting and hitting 115 in the first innings against South Africa in Durban. This made Hughes Australia's youngest Test centurion since Doug Walters in 1965. In the second innings of the same match, Hughes scored 160, becoming the youngest cricketer in history to score centuries in both innings of a Test match (Australia won the match by 175 runs). On 11 January 2013, he became the first Australian batsman in the history of ODI cricket to score a century on debut, a feat which he achieved against Sri Lanka in Melbourne. On 25 November 2014, Hughes was hit in the neck by a bouncer from Sean Abbott, during a Sheffield Shield match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, causing a vertebral artery dissection that led to a subarachnoid haemorrhage. The Australian team doctor, Peter Brukner, noted that only 100 such cases had ever been reported, with "only one [prior] case reported as a result of a cricket ball". Hughes was taken to St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, where he underwent surgery, was placed into an induced coma, and was in intensive care in a critical condition. He never regained consciousness, and died on 27 November 2014, three days before what would have been his 26th birthday.

8. Ricky Ponting (b. 1974)

With an HPI of 30.22, Ricky Ponting is the 8th most famous Australian Cricketer. His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.

Ricky Thomas Ponting (born 19 December 1974) is an Australian cricket coach, commentator and former player. He was widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of all time and is the most successful captain in international cricket history, with 220 victories in 324 matches with a winning rate of 67.91%. He has made the third highest number of centuries in international cricket, behind Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli. He holds the record for winning most ICC tournaments as a captain in Men's Cricket, including the 2003 and 2007 Cricket World Cups, and 2006 and 2009 Champions Trophies. He was also a member of the 1999 Cricket World Cup winning Australian team. Domestically, Ponting played for his home state of Tasmania as well as Tasmania's Hobart Hurricanes in Australia's domestic Twenty20 competition, the Big Bash League. He played as a specialist right-handed batsman, an excellent slip fielder, as well as a very occasional bowler. He led Australia to their second 5–0 Ashes win as well as victory at the 2003 and 2007 Cricket World Cups and was also a member of the 1999 World Cup winning team under Steve Waugh. He led Australia to consecutive ICC Champions Trophy victory in 2006 and 2009. Combative and at times a controversial captain, statistically he is one of the most successful Test captains of all time, with 48 victories in 77 Tests. As a player, Ponting is the only cricketer in history to be involved in 100 Test victories and was involved in the most ODI victories as a player, with 262 wins, having played in over 160 Tests and 370 ODIs. A prolific batter, Ponting is Australia's leading run-scorer in Test and ODI cricket. He was named "Cricketer of the Decade 2000" was named in the country's best Ashes XI in a Cricket Australia poll in 2017 and in July 2018 he was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame. He is the current assistant coach of the Australian national men's cricket team, having been appointed to the role in February 2019. Ponting announced his retirement from Test cricket in November 2012, the day before playing in his final Test against South Africa; this was his 168th and last Test appearance, equalling the Australian record held by Steve Waugh. He retired with a Test batting average of 51.85, although he continued to play cricket around the world until 2013.

9. Steve Waugh (b. 1965)

With an HPI of 30.02, Steve Waugh is the 9th most famous Australian Cricketer. His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Stephen Rodger Waugh (born 2 June 1965) is an Australian former international cricketer and twin brother of cricketer Mark Waugh. A right-handed batsman and a medium-pace bowler, Waugh is considered one of the greatest cricketers of all time. Waugh was a part of the Australian team that won their first world title during the 1987 Cricket World Cup. As Australian captain from 1997 to 2004, he led Australia to fifteen of their record sixteen consecutive Test wins, and to victory in the 1999 Cricket World Cup. Waugh is considered the most successful Test captain in history with 41 victories and a winning ratio of 72%. Born in New South Wales, with whom he began his first-class cricket career in 1984, he captained the Australian Test cricket team from 1999 to 2004, and was the most capped Test cricket player in history, with 168 appearances, until Sachin Tendulkar of India broke this record in 2010. Waugh was the world number 1 all-rounder in both Test and One Day International (ODI) cricket until back issues forced him to give up bowling. He concentrated only on batting and went on to become one of the leading batsmen of his time. He is one of only thirteen players to have scored more than 10,000 Test runs. He was named Australian of the Year in 2004 for his philanthropic work, and inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in front of his home fans at the Sydney Cricket Ground in January 2010. Waugh has been included in a list of one hundred Australian Living Treasures by the National Trust of Australia, awarded the Order of Australia and the Australian Sports Medal. Known as an attacking and sometimes ruthlessly efficient captain, Described in 2003 as a "cold-blooded, scientific" leader, cricket columnist of The Times Simon Barnes noted that "Waugh wants to defeat you personally." At the end of his final Test match, Waugh was carried by his teammates in a lap of honour around the Sydney Cricket Ground. In a fan poll conducted by the CA in 2017, he was named in the country's best Ashes XI in the last 40 years.

10. Glenn Maxwell (b. 1988)

With an HPI of 29.37, Glenn Maxwell is the 10th most famous Australian Cricketer. His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Glenn James Maxwell (born 14 October 1988) is an Australian professional cricketer. He has played for the Australia national cricket team in all formats of the game since 2012, although he is primarily a One Day International and Twenty20 International specialist. Maxwell is an all-rounder who is known for his sometimes unorthodox batting and bowls right arm off-break deliveries. Domestically he played for Victoria and Melbourne Stars. He was part of the Australian squads that won the 2015 Cricket World Cup, the 2023 Cricket World Cup, and the 2021 T20 World Cup. His ability to make unconventional shots like reverse sweeps and pulls often makes it hard to set fields that cover all of his scoring areas. Maxwell made his professional debut in 2010. Known for his dramatic shot making and improvisation in short forms of the game, in 2011, he set a new record for the fastest ever half-century in Australian domestic one day cricket, scoring 50 runs from 19 balls. Maxwell has played domestic Twenty20 cricket in both India and England and has scored centuries in all three international cricket formats, one of only 25 cricketers who have achieved this feat. In November 2017 he scored his maiden double-century, scoring 278 in the Sheffield Shield and in October 2023 set a new record for the fastest century scored at a Cricket World Cup, reaching his century in 40 balls against the Netherlands. In November 2023, he also set a new record for the fastest double century scored in a World Cup, becoming just the third person to do so. He also became the first male batsman to score a double century for Australia in ODIs and scored the winning runs against India in the 2023 Cricket World Cup final. In the same month just after the World Cup, he equaled Rohit Sharma's world record for having scored the most number of centuries in T20I cricket when he slammed his fourth career T20I century against India. He also became the first batsman in men's T20Is to complete three centuries while chasing. He also became the first and only batsman to complete a century in his 100th T20I match.

People

Pantheon has 24 people classified as Australian cricketers born between 1908 and 1991. Of these 24, 19 (79.17%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Australian cricketers include Ian Chappell, Allan Border, and Ricky Ponting. The most famous deceased Australian cricketers include Don Bradman, Shane Warne, and Richie Benaud. As of April 2024, 8 new Australian cricketers have been added to Pantheon including Ian Chappell, Allan Border, and Richie Benaud.