5 Cricketers who played alongside most players in International Cricket

3. Sachin Tendulkar – 141 players

Sachin Tendulkar, through his 24-year International career, represented India in as many as 664 matches. Sachin played along with a total of 141 players in those games which are bettered by only two individuals. One would expect Sachin to top the list but having not played any World XI or Asia XI matches with International status didn’t improve his number. Another reason which went against Tendulkar is him not playing with more number of players in Test cricket.

He played Test cricket with only 110 different players as India had a core group in the longer format during the 2000s which covered the second half of Sachin’s career. Rahul Dravid played as many as 146 Test matches alongside Sachin while Anil Kumble and VVS Laxman featured in 122 and 120 Tests respectively with the prolific run-getter of the format. Sourav Ganguly (103), Virender Sehwag (93), Harbhajan Singh (86) and Zaheer Khan (81) were also part of the majority of Sachin’s career.

Sachin appeared in a record 464 ODI matches and had featured alongside 123 players; the 2nd most by any player in the format. Just like in Tests, the number of players Sachin played alongside in ODIs is little less given the number of matches he actually played. One of the reasons being Tendulkar playing over 200 ODIs with as many as five players – Rahul Dravid (245), Anil Kumble (245), Sourav Ganguly (238), Mohammad Azharuddin (223) and Javagal Srinath (204).