We’re back with another XI, and it’s time to celebrate the men who just kept on going, and did so with style.

This side features players who managed to enjoy great success in ODI cricket after turning 35. While most enjoyed spectacular careers to begin with, the runs, wickets and momentous moments just kept on coming.

Statistics are from after the player turned 35

Tillakaratne Dilshan

116 matches, 4,674 runs @ 45.82

No-one has more ODI runs after turning 35 than Dilshan, who simply got better with age. Twelve of his 22 ODI hundreds arrived after he celebrated his 35th birthday, with his average of 45.82 in that period six runs higher than his overall career average of 39.27. His handy offies are a bonus in this side.

Matthew Hayden

40 matches, 1,899 runs @ 54.25

Australia’s man-mountain of a left-hander went to another level in the final days of his ODI career. He was the leading run-scorer in Australia’s 2007 World Cup-winning campaign, striking 659 runs at an average of 73.22, with three hundreds and a strike rate of 101.07. While his Test career ended with a lean run of scores, in ODI cricket he finished with three half-centuries in his final three innings.

 

Sachin Tendulkar

46 matches, 2,065 runs @ 49.16

The Little Master enjoyed some landmark moments in the final stages of his illustrious 50-over career. In February 2010, at the age of 36, he became the first man to hit 200 in an ODI, and a year later he finally got his hands on the World Cup, finishing as the second-highest run-scorer in the tournament. His final ODI century, against Bangladesh in March 2012, lifted him to the unprecedented summit of 100 international tons.

Kumar Sangakkara

71 matches, 3,392 runs @ 57.49

The classy leftie enjoyed an extraordinary finish to his ODI career. At the 2015 World Cup, his final hurrah in the format, he reeled off four consecutive centuries, finishing that tournament with an extraordinary average of 108.20 to go with a strike rate of 105.87. Sangakkara passed fifty in 12 of his last 19 ODI innings – simply sublime.

Zaheer Abbas

33 matches, 1,406 runs @ 52.07

One of Pakistan’s greatest-ever batsmen, Abbas’ strike-rate of 91.71 after he turned 35 wouldn’t look out of place in this day and age, and yet he put up these numbers in the early and mid-Eighties. Against India in 1982, he compiled three back-to-back centuries at better than a run a ball, and a year later he was Pakistan’s highest run-scorer at the World Cup in England, striking 313 runs at 62.60.

MS Dhoni (wk)

72 matches, 1,855 runs @ 47.56 | 94 dismissals

A bit of explosiveness was lost in the final years of Dhoni’s international career, with criticism aimed at the former skipper for slow knocks that seemed unusually ill-adjudged for someone who had made his name as one of the great finishers. Still, an average inching towards 48 after turning 35 is an impressive feat. There’s little between them, but Dhoni takes the gloves over Sangakkara, who’ll stay busy making even more hundreds.

Imran Khan (c)

80 matches, 2,071 runs @ 36.98 | 82 wickets @ 30.78

One of the greatest all-rounders of all time signed off on his international career in grand style: leading Pakistan at the 1992 World Cup, Imran took his side from the brink of elimination to a final at the MCG where they defeated England by 22 runs in a historic win. A 39-year-old Imran top-scored with 72 – batting at three – and took the final wicket of the match, too. An obvious choice as the leader of this side.

Wasim Akram

40 matches, 62 wickets @ 21.51

The most prolific left-armer in the history of international cricket kept going until the end of the 2003 World Cup; the only quicks with more ODI wickets after turning 35 are Glenn McGrath and Imran Khan.

Muttiah Muralitharan

56 matches, 87 wickets @ 24.12

International cricket’s leading wicket-taker turned 35 during the course of the 2007 World Cup – in which he helped Sri Lanka to the final – and he was still a potent force four years later in another runners-up finish, taking 15 wickets at 19.40 in his final act for Sri Lanka.

Imran Tahir

94 matches, 147 wickets @ 26.19

A late-starter who made his ODI debut at the age of 31, Tahir is the only bowler to have taken more than 100 wickets in the format after reaching 35. The South African leggie more than made up for lost time and was last month voted onto the ICC’s ODI team of the decade.

Glenn McGrath

49 matches, 75 wickets @ 21.28

The metronomic Australian master spearheaded his country’s attack at the 2007 World Cup as a 37-year-old and finished with a remarkable tally of 26 wickets at 13.73 to go alongside a third World Cup winners’ medal.