5 brutal on-field rivalries in the history of cricket

Since its inception almost two centuries ago, the great game of cricket has gradually developed into an emotion more than just a game. Be it cricketers or the fans of the game, they live up to the game fully to the best of their emotional and psychological investment. In its long history, cricket has witnessed some everlasting legends who served the game with fiery dedication and perseverance for the game.

Similarly, there had been a lot of on-field rivalries between the former legends of the game. These mini-battles happened to be very famous in the entire cricketing world during their active cricketing careers and ever after they hung their boots from international cricket.

With said that, here in this listicle, we’ll have a look at the top 5 renowned and historic rivalries in the history of cricket.

Don Bradman and Wally Hammond

It was an era of some famous Ashes rivalries between Australia and England, the entire cricketing fraternity was witnessing a man of Sir Don Bradman’s stature serving the game with his brilliant batting excellence. Bradman has quite a bit of known rivalries with England pacers Douglas Jardine and Harold Larwood.

But apart from these two, there happened another England pacer Harold Larwood who had a very tough competition with the Australian batting great. It was the Ashes of 1938 when Hammond was leading the team of England and he took this rivalry to the next level when England smashed 903 runs in an inning after batting for three days in the game. Eventually, the three lions registered the biggest win in the history of cricket.

Allan Border and Ian Botham

Whenever a cricket pundit or an expert of the game talks about the history of the Ashes, it also takes us back to the time when Australian and England's players used to be great friends. It was completely apart from their on-field rivalries.

But then came the period of the late 80s decade when Allan Border took the charge of Australia and won three consecutive Ashes in 1989, 1991, and 1993. Notably, Border also had a tough competition with his England counterpart and the then-great all-rounder Ian Botham. But the former always dominated Botham in most of the face-offs during that era.

Manoj Prabhakar and Javed Miandad

It’s not possible that there won’t be individual on-field rivalries on-field when the arch-rivals and two South Asian cricketing giants India and Pakistan face other. Venkatesh Prasad-Amir Sohail, Sachin-Shoaib, and many more.

So, one of the renowned rivalries in the Indo-Pak clashes was between former legendary Pakistan batter Javed Miandad and Indian pace spearhead Manoj Prabhakar. The latter made Miandad struggle against the reverse swing on a couple of occasions. This interesting battle between both masters of the game was also a pleasing visual for ardent cricket fans in the Indo-Pak cricketing fraternity.

Arjun Ranatunga and Shane Warne

There are few battles in the game of cricket that are not only restricted to the 22 yards or the field of the game but they get a space outside the boundary line. The rivalry between former World Cup winner Sri Lanka skipper Arjun Ranatunga and former Aussie great Shane Warne was a good example of this. Everyone witnessed this epic clash when Sri Lanka and the Aussies were locking horns in the final of the ODI World Cup 1996.

Ranatunga took this heat to a next level when he mocked Warne after smashing a six off his ball. This mini-battle between these two cricketing greats stayed there on and off the field for decades later on.

Sachin Tendulkar and Glenn McGrath

Former legendary Indian batter Sachin Tendulkar is the only batter in history who holds most of the cricketing records to his name in a decorated international career of 24 years. But do you know, there were also the bowlers with whom the Master Blaster had a very tough competition.

One of their major rivalries of Sachin was with former Australian spin great Shane Warne, in which the former always dominated as the second-highest wicket-taker in the history of Test cricket. But there was also an Australian against who Tendulkar seemed to be struggling and he also dominated, he was none other than the former renowned Aussie pacer Glenn McGrath. The duo provided a lot of quality cricket and entertainment to the fans.