The Friendship between Sports Stars – International Friendship Day 2020

Possibly the most powerful friendship in Indian cricket history over the past two decades, Tendulkar and Ganguly formed the most destructive and successful opening partnership on the pitch and have a good friendship thereafter. In Dada’s autobiography - A Century is not Enough, he recalled a moment when Sachin Tendulkar taped his bat at the India tour of England in 1996 and said, "a sojourn which saw the Bengal southpaw announce his arrival on the international stage."

The Argentine duo have been friends since their youth football days and represented Argentina in several tournaments. Messi and Aguero met each other in 2005, enjoying the U-17 matches of Argentina and have usually been very close companions since.

Despite their fierce rivalry on court, these two great tennis players share a great bond. In 2016, Federer once stated about Nadal, "I've been around the game 17 years. I've seen a lot of hard workers and inspiring players, but you've been the one in my opinion who has been the most inspiring and most influential and made me the player I am today."

After becoming a free agent in 2010, Lebron James wanted to play the sport with his good friend Dwyane Wade in Miami and that’s why, he joined the Heat. When asked in an interview about how they became such dear friends, Wade said, "I think it was a lot from our childhood. Just similar upbringings. The struggle of our mothers and the way that we had to grow up. We're very similar in a lot of ways. So you just hit it off with somebody."

Both these openers were more than an explosive batsman. The two always had the best things to say about each other. Sehwag once said: "After Sunil Gavaskar, India has never had an opener like Gautam Gambhir." When Sehwag retired, Gambhir became seriously emotional and stated "a part of him has gone with Sehwag. There can be no other player like Sehwag."

Many players from different countries came together as part of a team and became good friends because of IPL. Two of which are Virat Kohli and AB De Villiers, who together played some terrific knocks for RCB and form a great bond in the history of the tournament.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Maxwell are friends from a decade ago, and the pair has been inseparable ever since they have played together at Inter Milan, Barcelona and Paris-Saint Germain. In Zlatan’s autobiography, “I Am Zlatan”, he had mentioned about their friendship in several places.

Sangakkara and Jayawardene are friends before being teammates. The two legends formed one of the greatest batsmen pairings in cricket history from the past 15 years. From regularly interacting with each other to trying out new things to improve their game and exploring new places together during tours, they gradually developed their friendship through the years.

Undoubtedly the most prominent female stars of their respective nations, Romania's Bernadette Szocs and India's Manika Batra have been in constant headlines for their performances in recent years, due to which both of them were nominated for the 2018 “Breakthrough Star Award” in which Manika won the award, for which Bernadette looked happier for her friend Manika!

Along with being an essential contingent of the Indian cricket workforce, Rahul and Pandya have shared a fantastic bond and have given their followers key friendship objectives on quite a few events. After exchanging jerseys at the conclusion of Kings XI Punjab vs. Mumbai Indians match in IPL 2018, both of them are considered to be good friends of each other.