5 cricketers who took up interesting professions after retiring from cricket

Ernest Hemingway once said, Retirement is the ugliest word in the language. Ask a cricketerand he will probably tell you that it is instead a dreaded one. Unlike other professions, the career of a cricketer has a short shelf-life. Hit 30 years of age and you are branded an oldie and a veteran.A couple of average performances and a handful of rookies are lined up as replacements. Before you know whats hit you, you are deemed past your prime and packed off into the archives. Sudden or gradual, retirement looms large over a cricketers career. And often, when the end is around the corner, a journalist pops the inevitable question to an unsuspecting cricketer what would you do after retirement?With an endless list of opportunities, international cricketers over the years have applied their on-field acumen off of it as well to carve out successful careers post retirement. With commentating, coaching, administration and umpiring being the usual suspects, the non-cricketing career post retirement continues to be the path less traversed.We take a look at some of those that looked beyond cricket after calling it a day.

#1 Adam Hollioake

Once captain of the England ODI team, Adam Hollioake later became an MMA fighter.

In the late nineties, as an unconventional all-rounder from Surrey, Adam Hollioake flourished well enough to lead England to a Sharjah Cup title in 1997.

After retirement in 2004, he ran the Ben Hollioake Fund (in memory of his deceased younger brother) and a property business in Australia in parallel. Unfortunately for Hollioake, the property business ran into trouble and he appeared in court bankrupt and A$20 million of pounds in debt. Not one to go down without a fight, he took up professional Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighting in 2012.