There will always be cricketing careers that will inspire and entertain in equal measure. And then there'll always be inspiring careers that will make the fans wonder if they could have lasted perhaps longer than they did.

Ever a strange predicament of the game right? And while surely, all of us want our favourite cricketers to play for the longest possible time, it isn't always possible as has been the case in the past. And when some careers do not, quite frankly, go the long distance, it casts doubts either on the strange nature of the game or the circumstances in which cricketers came and departed the scene.

Having said that, let us delve into some careers that for all their talent and might still pose the big question - whether these cricketers could have continued?

List of the top five Cricketers who retired early from International Cricket

1. Kevin Pietersen

A brute attacker of bowlers and someone proficient at playing outside the prescribed coaching manual, many of Kevin Pietersen's strokes were ostentatious and thrilling and endlessly so. Someone born in South Africa but presenting his entire talent and passion to England, 'KP' excelled against both spin and pace and made the Ashes 2005 an exhibition of his world class potential. That 158 at the Oval is still touted as one of the most incredible of all innings ever scored by an English batter. But fallouts with his own English teammates and opaque decision policies that weren't always in his favour seemed to hurt a career that deserved to go a long way further than it covered. Pietersen retired aged 34, this is when he was both fit as a fiddle and had his mind in the right frame to tear apart bowlers.

2. AB de Villiers

There are batters, there are great batters and then there's Abraham Benjamin De Villiers, who was and shall always be remembered as a generational talent or maybe someone whose talent could be dubbed subliminal. A harrowing presence in the middle for bowlers of all kings, De Villiers sledgehammered his way to tearing bowlers into oblivion and could even play 'blockathons' amid intense pressure. Grace, timing and the poise needed to play long innings, he was every bit an artist as he was also a slayer of the white and red ball in cricket. Maybe De Villiers' lack of judgement where it came to extending his stay in the game hampered his own career, if one might argue. After suddenly making his plans to stay on for the 2019 WC in England, he chose against it, much too drastically. So one wasn't sure what the sublime batter who also kept well for the Proteas, on occasions, came to in the end. Fit to play even today, aged 41, De Villiers scored over 20,000 international runs (47 hundreds, 109 fifties).

3. Ramnaresh Sarwan

Pure class, great temerity and the ability to perform under pressure; these were just some of the hallmarks of the man still lovingly dubbed 'Sars' in Windies cricket. A proud Guyanese who loved representing West Indies Cricket, Sarwan combined the fighting instincts of a Chanderpaul and exuded the level of class comparable to a certain Carl Hooper. Scorer of a various and gritty 291, his highest individual Test score that came at Barbados against a Broad, Anderson, Sidebottom and Swann-powered England attack, Sarwan was about a whole load of guts in the middle. He compiled 11,000-plus runs, including 5,800 in Test match cricket and struck 20 international centuries, but was able to play for just 12 years when his talent and fitness warranted greater consideration. Sarwan last wore a Windies national jersey when he was 33, a period of time where he was still making runs.

4. Andrew Flintoff

Freddie Flintoff, as he was lovingly called, blasted onto the England national scene as a 21-year-old, circa 1998, a period of time in which he made his Test debut for England against the Proteas. What's rather remarkably sad is that a cricketer who had the makings to be an accomplished all format great of the game, someone who should rightly have played an excelled for the longest time even in T20 cricket, was able to just play 7 odd T20I's for England. A more than useful medium pace bowler and an accomplished batter, Flintoff, for the better part of his career juggled with weight issues and when not, a capricious or sort of unpredictable attitude highlighted most notably by that late night binge drinking episode in the aftermath of England's 2007 World Cup campaign.

Yet, he was able to accumulate 395 wickets from Tests and ODI's and scored no fewer than 7200 runs from the twin formats. While surely, his class warranted better results as a batter, having a Test average of 31 and an ODI average just north of 32, does huge injustice to his huge potential. It could be argued that his mindset when it came to the testing waters of international cricket also contributed to what could be dubbed a premature exit from the game as Flintfoff was just 32 when he left international cricket.

5.Tatenda Taibu

Quite frankly one of the most charismatic and able batters to have come from the Zimbabwean fold in the recent decades, Taibu was a dependable lad who didn't take a lot of time to exhibit his full potential. An agile keeper who could dive all day on the ground, appear tireless and still hit runs when needed, he was anything but a lame pushover once at the crease.

He hit 34 fifties along with three international centuries in a Zimbabwean shirt and was able to play for just a little over a decade for the African nation. But the constant political turmoil back in his country coupled with uncertain selection policies dwarfed the career of the cheerful cricketer. He led to 38 stumpings and 171 catches for the Zimbabwe national team and surely presided over a career that deserved long legs.Dev Tyagi