Most Popular Sportsmen in Pakistan: 11 Legends & Stars Ranked
On this page16
- 01Pakistan's most popular sportsmen at a glance
- 02Babar Azam
- 03Arshad Nadeem
- 04Imran Khan
- 05Wasim Akram
- 06Shaheen Shah Afridi
- 07Mohammad Rizwan
- 08Shan Masood
- 09Javed Miandad
- 10Jahangir Khan
- 11Jansher Khan
- 12Mohammad Asif
- 13How We Ranked Them
- 14Cricket’s Grip vs. Individual Glory
- 15At a Glance: Discipline and Signature Feat
- 16What This List Isn’t
We ranked on three weighted inputs: how much national attention an athlete commands in 2026, the scale of their peak achievement, and how far they moved their sport inside Pakistan. Current relevance breaks ties between two legends of similar stature.
Pakistan's most popular sportsmen at a glance
| Rank | Sportsman | Sport | Defining achievement |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Babar Azam | Cricket | Modern batting star |
| 2 | Arshad Nadeem | Javelin | Pakistan's first individual Olympic gold |
| 3 | Imran Khan | Cricket | 1992 World Cup-winning captain |
| 4 | Wasim Akram | Cricket | First bowler to 500 ODI wickets |
| 5 | Shaheen Shah Afridi | Cricket | Leading new-ball fast bowler |
| 6 | Mohammad Rizwan | Cricket | Elite wicketkeeper-batter |
| 7 | Shan Masood | Cricket | Former Test captain |
| 8 | Javed Miandad | Cricket | Famous 1986 last-ball six |
| 9 | Jahangir Khan | Squash | Six World Opens; decade unbeaten |
| 10 | Jansher Khan | Squash | Record eight World Open titles |
| 11 | Mohammad Asif | Snooker | Three-time IBSF world champion |
- Current No. 1
Babar Azam
Babar Azam tops the list because no other Pakistani athlete combines his on-field output with his day-to-day hold on the national conversation. In the 2026 Pakistan Super League he finished as the tournament's leading run-scorer with 588 runs, equalling the all-time record for a single PSL season. He has spent recent years ranked among the top batters across all three formats.
He ranks above Arshad Nadeem here on sheer frequency of attention: cricket is a near-daily conversation in Pakistan, and in July 2026 Babar took back the Test captaincy from Shan Masood, putting him at the center of every squad debate heading into a heavy overseas schedule. See more on the game's richest cricketers.
Sport: Cricket · Role: Top-order batter, Test captain · Defining 2026 feat: 588-run PSL season (record-equalling)
- Olympic first
Arshad Nadeem
Arshad Nadeem earns the No. 2 spot on a single, unrepeatable line in the record book: his 92.97-metre throw at Paris 2024 won javelin gold, set an Olympic record, and gave Pakistan its first individual Olympic gold medal in any sport. He beat defending champion Neeraj Chopra to do it.
On pure achievement he has a claim to No. 1; he sits second only because cricket's grip on Pakistani attention is year-round while athletics surges around a single event. His gold followed Commonwealth Games gold in 2022 and a World Championships silver in 2023, so the Paris result was a peak, not a one-off. The mechanics are covered in our javelin throw explainer.
Sport: Javelin · Peak: 92.97m, Paris 2024 (Olympic & Asian record) · Defining feat: Pakistan's first individual Olympic gold
- All-time icon
Imran Khan
Imran Khan ranks third because his fame reaches past sport in a way none of the modern names can match. He captained Pakistan to its only ICC Cricket World Cup title, in 1992, then went on to serve as the country's Prime Minister — a dual public life that keeps him in national conversation decades after his last match.
As a cricketer he was a genuine all-rounder: more than 3,800 Test runs and 362 Test wickets, one of a small group to pass 3,000 runs and 300 wickets in the format. Among the greatest cricketers of all time, he is usually named in the first breath.
Sport: Cricket · Peak: 1992 World Cup-winning captain · Defining feat: 3,000+ Test runs and 300+ Test wickets
- Bowling great
Wasim Akram
Wasim Akram makes the top five on volume and craft: he took 502 one-day international wickets — the first bowler to pass 500 in the format — plus 414 in Tests, for more than 900 international wickets. His ability to swing the old ball both ways at pace built the template modern fast bowlers still study.
He ranks above the current pace group because his career is settled history rather than an open question, and because he remains one of the sport's most visible ambassadors on commentary. His profile is here: Wasim Akram.
Sport: Cricket · Role: Left-arm fast bowler · Defining feat: 502 ODI wickets (first to 500), 916 international wickets
- Modern spearhead
Shaheen Shah Afridi
Shaheen Shah Afridi is the highest-ranked active bowler here because he is the one Pakistani quick opponents plan around. His height and left-arm angle produce sharp new-ball movement, and early wickets in the powerplay have been his signature since his 2018 debut.
He sits above his batting teammates lower on the list because a strike bowler shapes a match more directly than a middle-order name, and because he has carried captaincy responsibility across white-ball cricket. He is central to how Pakistan competes at events like the Cricket World Cup.
Sport: Cricket · Role: Left-arm fast bowler · Defining trait: New-ball strike weapon since 2018
- White-ball anchor
Mohammad Rizwan
Mohammad Rizwan ranks sixth on reliability rather than flash. As a wicketkeeper-batter he became one of the most consistent white-ball run-accumulators of his era, and he has held the white-ball captaincy during Pakistan's rotating leadership setup.
What separates him from the bowlers above is workload: keeping wicket while batting long innings is a rare double, and it keeps him in the side across formats even as selectors reshuffle the captaincy around him.
Sport: Cricket · Role: Wicketkeeper-batter · Defining trait: High-volume white-ball scoring, former captain
- Recent captain
Shan Masood
Shan Masood makes the list because he led Pakistan's Test side through a demanding stretch from 2024 until he handed the role to Babar Azam in July 2026. A left-handed opener, he stayed a fixture at the top of the order throughout, even as results ran against him.
He ranks below the bigger names because his tenure produced mixed outcomes rather than trophies, but his squad-building instincts keep him in the conversation about Pakistan's most successful cricket captains in terms of process.
Sport: Cricket · Role: Opening batter, former Test captain (2024–2026) · Defining trait: Long-form top-order stability
- Clutch finisher
Javed Miandad
Javed Miandad ranks on one of cricket's most-replayed endings: his last-ball six off Chetan Sharma to beat India in the 1986 Austral-Asia Cup final. That single shot became shorthand for his whole game — a batter who was hardest to dismiss when the match was tightest.
Across a long career he was Pakistan's steadiest run-machine, and his refusal to fold under pressure made him one of the era's most feared closers. He sits here rather than higher because his fame is generational, felt most by fans who watched him live.
Sport: Cricket · Role: Middle-order batter · Defining feat: Last-ball six vs India, 1986 Austral-Asia Cup final
- Squash legend
Jahangir Khan
Jahangir Khan ranks ninth overall but is arguably Pakistan's greatest individual champion in any sport. He went unbeaten across roughly 555 matches over about five years in the 1980s — recognized as one of the longest winning streaks in professional sport — before Ross Norman ended it at the 1986 World Open.
He won the World Open six times and the British Open a record ten times. He sits below the cricket names purely on present-day national visibility, not achievement; among the greatest squash players ever, he is a constant pick.
Sport: Squash · Peak: ~555 matches unbeaten (1980s) · Defining feat: 6 World Opens, 10 British Opens
- Squash successor
Jansher Khan
Jansher Khan holds the number that even Jahangir doesn't: eight World Open titles, the most in the championship's history. He took over as squash's dominant force in the late 1980s and held it deep into the 1990s, adding six British Open crowns.
Their overlap makes the pair unique — between them, two Pakistanis owned the sport's biggest title for the better part of two decades, a run few countries have matched in any individual discipline. He ranks just behind Jahangir on the smaller cultural footprint of his peak years.
Sport: Squash · Peak: 8 World Open titles (record) · Defining feat: Dominated 1990s alongside Jahangir Khan
- Cue-sport champion
Mohammad Asif
Mohammad Asif closes the list as proof Pakistan's talent runs past cricket and squash. In November 2024 he won his third IBSF World Snooker Championship, beating Iran's Ali Gharahgozlou in the Doha final and joining India's Pankaj Advani on three individual world titles.
He ranks 11th because snooker draws a smaller home audience than the sports above, but three world crowns across 2012, 2019, and 2024 make him one of Pakistan's most decorated athletes in any code — a quiet counterweight to the country's two headline sports.
Sport: Snooker · Peak: 3× IBSF World champion (2012, 2019, 2024) · Defining feat: Equalled the record for individual world titles
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- Babar Azam
- Arshad Nadeem
- Imran Khan
- Wasim Akram
- Shaheen Shah Afridi
- Mohammad Rizwan
- Shan Masood
- Javed Miandad
- Jahangir Khan
- Jansher Khan
- Mohammad Asif
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How everyone ranked them
Built from reader rankings using position-based points.
Pakistan’s sporting fame concentrates in a few disciplines, and this list reflects that. Cricket supplies most of the names because it dominates attention, money, and media in Pakistan like nothing else. But the country’s two most complete individual champions come from squash, and its single most historic result — an Olympic gold — came from a javelin runway. The ranking below tries to hold all of that in one frame.
How We Ranked Them
Each athlete was weighed on three inputs, blended rather than scored in isolation:
- Current national attention (2026): who Pakistanis actually talk about now. This is why an active Test captain and a reigning Olympic champion sit at the top, and why generational squash legends rank below cricketers with smaller trophy cabinets.
- Peak achievement: the size of the single biggest thing they did — a World Cup, an Olympic gold, a record streak, a career wicket tally.
- Impact on the sport in Pakistan: how far they moved their discipline domestically, from Imran Khan’s 1992 template to Arshad Nadeem opening a path in athletics.
When two athletes are close in stature, present-day relevance breaks the tie. That is the only reason Jahangir Khan — arguably Pakistan’s greatest individual champion — sits at nine rather than near the top: his peak was 40 years ago.
Cricket’s Grip vs. Individual Glory
The list splits cleanly into two stories. Seven of the eleven are cricketers, which mirrors where Pakistan’s sporting economy and fan base actually sit. The other four — two squash players, a javelin thrower, and a snooker champion — are individual-sport athletes who reached a global No. 1 or world-title level that Pakistani cricket, for all its passion, has matched only twice (the 1992 World Cup and the 2009 T20 World Cup).
That contrast is the useful takeaway: cricket gives Pakistan its everyday sporting identity, while its individual champions gave it some of its rarest, hardest records.
At a Glance: Discipline and Signature Feat
| Athlete | Discipline | Signature feat |
|---|---|---|
| Babar Azam | Cricket | Record-equalling 588-run PSL 2026 season; Test captain |
| Arshad Nadeem | Javelin | Pakistan’s first individual Olympic gold, Paris 2024 (92.97m) |
| Imran Khan | Cricket | 1992 World Cup-winning captain |
| Wasim Akram | Cricket | First bowler to 500 ODI wickets |
| Shaheen Shah Afridi | Cricket | Modern new-ball strike weapon |
| Mohammad Rizwan | Cricket | High-volume wicketkeeper-batter |
| Shan Masood | Cricket | Test captain, 2024–2026 |
| Javed Miandad | Cricket | Last-ball six vs India, 1986 |
| Jahangir Khan | Squash | ~555 matches unbeaten; 6 World Opens |
| Jansher Khan | Squash | 8 World Open titles (record) |
| Mohammad Asif | Snooker | 3× IBSF World champion |
What This List Isn’t
This ranks popularity and achievement combined, not a single career-value metric. A pure trophy count would push the squash Khans higher; a pure attention meter would leave out retired legends entirely. It also leans toward athletes still in public life, which is why field hockey — historically Pakistan’s Olympic powerhouse — isn’t represented by a current name despite its past. The list is a snapshot of who Pakistan celebrates in 2026, weighted by what they achieved to earn it.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the most popular sportsman in Pakistan right now?+
Babar Azam is the biggest current sports name, topping the 2026 PSL run charts and taking back the Test captaincy in July 2026. Arshad Nadeem runs him close after his Paris 2024 Olympic javelin gold made him a national hero. In 2026, these two are the athletes most Pakistanis point to first, one from cricket and one from a sport Pakistan had never won gold in before.
Who is the most famous Pakistani sportsman of all time?+
Imran Khan is the usual answer. He captained Pakistan to the 1992 World Cup — its only cricket world title — then became Prime Minister, giving him a public profile no other athlete matches. Jahangir Khan, whose squash dominance is recognized among the longest winning streaks in any sport, and Wasim Akram, the first bowler to 500 ODI wickets, are the other names most often placed at the very top.
Is Arshad Nadeem really bigger than Pakistan's cricketers?+
For one throw, yes. His 92.97-metre gold at Paris 2024 was Pakistan's first individual Olympic gold medal in any sport, an achievement no cricketer can claim. But cricket's pull is year-round while athletics spikes around major events, so in day-to-day attention the top cricketers stay ahead. On single-achievement terms, though, Nadeem's Olympic gold arguably outranks everyone on this list.
Who captains Pakistan's cricket team in 2026?+
The captaincy is split by format. Babar Azam took over the Test side from Shan Masood in July 2026 ahead of a heavy overseas schedule. Shaheen Shah Afridi has led in white-ball cricket, and Salman Ali Agha has captained the T20I side, including through the 2026 T20 World Cup. Splitting leadership across formats has been Pakistan's approach through this period rather than naming one all-format captain.
Why are two squash players ranked among Pakistan's top sportsmen?+
Because for nearly two decades Pakistan simply owned world squash. Jahangir Khan won six World Opens and went about 555 matches unbeaten; Jansher Khan then won a record eight World Opens. No other country has produced back-to-back individual champions of that scale in the sport. Their run is why squash, not hockey, is Pakistan's most successful non-cricket export in the modern era.
Which Pakistani athletes have succeeded outside cricket and squash?+
Two stand out. Arshad Nadeem broke through in athletics, winning Olympic and Commonwealth javelin gold. Mohammad Asif built a snooker career with three IBSF World Championships (2012, 2019, 2024), equalling the record for individual world titles. Field hockey also once made Pakistan an Olympic and World Cup power, though its recent international results have fallen well below that historic peak.
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