Top 5 sportspersons to play more than one sport

Sportspersons who have played more than one sport are a rare breed and deserve to be saluted. It is one thing to be good in one sport, but to event try another sport takes guts and to excel in it is just sheer talent and a salutation to hard work.

Here are five sportspersons who did precisely that and will be remembered for a long time to come for precisely those reasons.

5. Ian Botham (Cricket and Football)

Arguably England’s finest all-rounder of all time, Botham scored 14 centuries and took a record 383 Test wickets.

He also has the distinction of turning out for Scunthorpe United.

A friend had watched him play for a local pub side and then recommended that he come out and try his luck for The Iron. It took then manager Ron Ashman barely a week before he handed ‘Beefy’ a contract who went on to play 11 times for Scunthorpe in the Football League.

“The authorities didn’t really appreciate me playing against Hull on Boxing Day then flying to the West Indies 24 hours later to captain England,” Botham said. “But there were no central contracts back then… and I didn’t really care what the authorities thought.”