5 active cricketers who have had the longest career span in ODIs
Whenever longevity on the cricket pitch comes to mind, the name of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is the first one to pop in our heads. Sachin has been the cricketer with the longest and the most illustrious ODI career with a whopping 18,426 runs in a career spanning 22 years and 91 days.
He was caught on zero by Wasim Akram off the bowling of Waqar Younis on his debut against Pakistan at Gujranwala in December 1989. And after a career spanning more than 2 decades, he retired from ODIs on 18th March 2012 against Pakistan at Dhaka in the Asia Cup where he scored 52.
So here's the list of some active* cricketers who have had the longest career span in One-Day Internationals.
* Here active cricketers refer to the players who have played an One Day International in 2017-18.
#5 Mashrafe Mortaza - 16 years and 334 days
Mashrafe Mortaza made his ODI debut against Zimbabwe on November 23, 2001, in which he impressed one and all with his spell of 8.2-3-26-2 and made Grant Flower his first dismissal in ODIs. From thereon, there have been several ups and downs in his career, but he has made it back and has been given the responsibility of captaining Bangladesh.
He has featured in a total of 199 ODI matches for his country, taking 252 wickets with a best of 6/26 against Kenya in 2006. He has, at times, also been critical with the bat scoring 1722 runs in 147 innings with the highest score of 51*.
He has also been one of the most successful Bangladeshi captains in ODIs with a Win/Loss ratio of 1.407.
Mashrafe had announced his retirement from T20I in April 2017 but still hopes for a chance in Bangladesh's Test squad for which he last turned out almost a decade back in 2009.