3 Indian Cricket Players Who Turned Politician

It is said that a player who is representing his country on the international stage ends his career after taking retirement. But, that’s not actually true! As, you can’t keep a patriotic person out from serving the nation, whether it’s through representing the Indian national cricket team or being a politician and helping out the country. 

Indian cricketers have a long relationship with lawmakers as they have been seen batting on the political pitch for a long time. According to famous Historian Ram Guha, the first-ever cricketer to join politics was Palwankar Baloo, a Dalit leader who contested for a by-election in Bombay Municipality in 1933-34 and lost to a Parsi doctor Homi F Pavri. However, in 1937, he again stood up from the Congress National Party against Bhim Rao Ambedkar, where he was seen giving a tight competition before losing the results by 2000 votes.

In today’s article, we are going to talk about 3 Indian Cricket Players who turned into Politicians after retiring from the Gentlemen’s Game. 

3 Indian Cricket Players Who Turned Politician

3. Yusuf Pathan

Former Indian cricketer Yusuf Pathan was known for explosive batting in international cricket where he used to hit monster sixes easily against the best bowlers of the world. Yusuf Pathan was part of the Indian team in 2 World Cup wins in 2007 and 2011 under the captaincy of former Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. After announcing his retirement from international cricket in 2017, the Baroda-born cricketer contested in the 2024 Indian general election from the Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency on a Trinamool Congress ticket and won, defeating incumbent Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of Indian National Congress by a margin of 85,022 votes.

2. Gautam Gambhir

Gautam Gambhir is currently India’s cricket team head coach after the completion of former coach Rahul Dravid's tenure by guiding the Men in Blue to end the title drought of 17 long years for an ICC Men's T20 World Cup trophy. Before joining the Indian team as the head coach he was Member of Parliament from East Delhi in 2019 after winning the Indian general elections by 695,109 votes against Atishi Marlena and Arvinder Singh Lovely.

Under his tenure as an MP, he installed air purifiers in his constituency. Gambhir donated his two-year salary as MP during COVID-19 pandemic. Gambhir through his foundation started COVID-19 vaccination camps in his constituency. You might not know, but in Gambhir's constituency, Delhi BJP performed well in 2020 Delhi legislative elections and 2022 Delhi MCD elections. However, On 2 March 2024, he announced his departure from politics and Bharatiya Janata Party. 

1. Manoj Tiwary

On number 1, we have Manoj Tiwary, a former Indian cricketer who represented the Indian team from 2008 to 2015 in ODIs and T20Is format. Manoj was one of the talented batters for the Indian team in the middle order at that time leading the Indian team to several victories in his career of 7 years. Despite having great talent, his skills were ignored by BCCI and team management for a long time which made him announce his retirement in 2023. 

However, after taking retirement he started his new journey by joining hands with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's All India Trinamool Congress party in February 2021. He was selected as a candidate for the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election in Shibpur (Vidhan Sabha constituency), winning the seat and is a Member of the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal. In the Third Banerjee ministry, he was appointed as minister of state for Affairs of Sports and Youth. 

Apart from these 3 players, several more names on the list have made their debut in the field of politics and serve the country like, Md. Azharuddin, Kirti Azad and Navjot Singh Sidhu.