Most hated XI in international cricket

It is not so difficult to determine how a player can make his way into the fans’ hearts, but scoring in matches of relative importance and contributing profusely to the team’s success. The fans also adore cricketers who come up with miraculous performances, like Yuvraj Singh’s outstanding all-round effort in the 2011 Cricket World Cup.

Hatred, on the other side, is a much complex and difficult concept to understand. Sometimes, a few players could receive unparalleled hatred despite not doing anything heinous intentionally. Since the game is called the “Gentleman’s game”, the fans also take notice of some cricketers who are a wee bit too aggressive and tend to not like it.

There are many stories of cricketers in the past which made the fans hate certain individuals a lot. While sometimes it isn’t completely justifiable, it is also inevitable. Could the cricketers have done much to rectify it? Maybe yes, maybe not in some cases.

Let’s take a look at these eleven cricketers who in the past and present received great hatred as a player:

1. Salman Butt

A talented opener who perhaps had everything in his arsenal to become an all-time great, Salman Butt remained a country mile away from greatness and he only has himself to blame. The way things escalated and transformed in his case is a lesson to many youngsters, to think twice before stepping into a path in life.

In 2010 he was implicated of allegations in spot-fixing and eventually was banned from playing cricket. Interestingly, he was the captain of the side when this incident happened. Although the ban on him was lifted in 2015, he never really came back at the top level. Not just the Pakistani fans, but also the global cricketing audience dislike the 34-year-old for throwing away such an amazing future into the bin.