Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni in top 100 most famous athletes in the world; ranked above Serena, Hamilton

New Delhi, May 31: India skipper Virat Kohli and his predecessor Mahendra Singh Dhoni are top cricketers to have been included in ESPN's list of the top 100 most famous athletes on the planet.

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Kohli, has dropped five places from last year and is ranked 13 in ESPN's World Fame 100 this year, while MS Dhoni is placed two spots below the former at 15th spot.

With over 60 million followers on social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram combined) and $17.4 million made from endorsements, Kohli is still the highest ranked Indian on the list, said the report. He was at the eighth position in the list released in 2016.

Dhoni, on the other hand, also fell down by one place than his rank last year.

Dhoni too has a huge social media following and the release of the Bollywood biopic "MS Dhoni: The Untold Story" - which released in 61 countries and was amongst highest grossing films of 2016 - helped him remain second most popular cricketer.

Apart from these two, Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh are the other two cricketers to have made the cut. Yuvraj is placed at No. 90, while Raina ranked 95th in the list.

Indian tennis star Sania Mirza, the other Indian entrant in 2016, missed out on a spot in 2017.

The rankings for current sportspersons are based on a formula devised by Ben Alamar, ESPN's director of sports analytics; it combines salary and endorsements with social media following and Google search popularity.

Portugal's star football and Real Madrid striker Cristiano Ronaldo was named the most famous athlete.

The Portuguese tops ESPN's World Fame 100 for the second straight year, ahead of LeBron James, Lionel Messi, Roger Federer and Phil Mickelson.

Full list of ESPN's Fame 100.

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