Which elite cricketers have also played at a FIFA World Cup or Olympics? | Cricket News

Ellyse Perry is a two-time ICC Cricket World Cup winner, but also was part of the Matildas (Australian football national team), at the FIFA World Cup in 2011.

Not to be left behind should an Ashes rivalry crop up, Clare Taylor of Yorkshire, bowled fast for 127 wickets in 121 matches and went on to become 1993 World Cup winner at Lord’s. Two years later in 1995, she represented England at FIFA World Cup.

New Zealand captain Suzie Bates represented her country at the Beijing Olympics in basketball in 2008, and was later also Cricketer of the Year in 2013 and 2016.

Elite international cricketers have paved the path with their multi-skilled outings in various sports, reaching the top in more than one sport. While the upcoming Cricket World Cup 2025 will showcase the biggest and brightest talents in the women’s game as Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka battle it out to try and reach the final on 2 November, it will also be a celebration of these sporting polyglots who went beyond the boundaries of cricket.

The ICC while turning pages of history, wrote: “To reach cricket’s pinnacle requires talent, hard work and a steadfast determination, but over the years, a handful of past and present stars have reached the top of other sports too.”
It started with the game’s finest pioneers, Rachel Heyhoe Flint, who captained England between 1966 and 1978, who first hit a six in a Test match in 1973. She also played field hockey for England in 1964 as a goalkeeper.

Hailing from Wolverhampton, she was instrumental in arranging the inaugural women’s World Cup in 1973, which came two years before the first men’s World Cup.H eyhoe Flint last played for England in the 1982 World Cup final and was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in October 2010 after her 22-year international career.

Australian Ellyse Perry is a multi-sport legend after debuting for her country in both cricket and football at 16. ‘Perry played for Central Coast Mariners, Canberra United and Sydney FC during her footballing career and made 18 appearances for the Matildas. She has played at each sport’s respective World Cups, scoring against Sweden at the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup.Perry has been a top cricket star and a six-time world champion in T20Is,’ ICC wrote.

Taylor on the other foot, spent 18 years at Yorkshire and played her club football for Bronte and Liverpool Ladies.

She is an ICC Hall of Famer too.

Bates, after her Beijing stint in Olympics basketball for the Tall Ferns, came from Dunedin decided only in 2011 to focus on cricket. She was also the T20I Cricketer of the Year award, also in 2016.

Also from the southern hemisphere, but South Africa came the youngest player to represent South Africa in an ODI when she made her debut aged just 17 years and 10 days, but crucially, Sunette Viljoen won a silver medal in javelin at the Rio Olympics. The Rustenburg native also won gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in 2006 and 2010.

The Saffers in fact more recently boasted iof Tazmin Brits, who too qualified for the 2012 Olympics in javelin but just eight months before the Games, she was involved in a horrific car accident which resulted in her breaking her pelvis, dislocating her hip and bursting her bladder, as per ICC.

Brits spent three months in hospital and had to learn how to walk again as she missed the London showpiece.

In 2018, however, Brits debuted in T20 against Bangladesh and is now a two-time ICC Women’s T20 World Cup runner-up.

In fact as far back as 1934, when Gone With the Wind conceptualised filming for Scarlett O’Hara, Betty Snowball started her 15-year international cricket journey between 1934 to 1949 and also umpired one women’s Test in 1951. The ICC wrote, ‘In 1935, Snowball hit 189 against New Zealand in what was just the fourth-ever women’s Test. Her score was the world record for the highest individual score at the time and wasn’t broken until 1986.’

What made her the Scotts queen was away from cricket, Snowball represented Scotland in squash and lacrosse.

The upcoming World Cup has a storied precedent from the last time India hosted in 2013. Australia’s top scorer in the final and player of the match, was Jess Duffin nee Cameron.

Post cricket, she dabbled at and got good at Aussie Rules, turning out for the famous Collingwood, North Melbourne and Hawthorn, after retiring from cricket in 2023. She was also the first player to benefit from Cricket Australia’s parental leave scheme when she had her first child, ICC noted.