Jason Gillespie

Fast bowler Gillespie, of Australian indigenous descent, stood out in the national teams of his era with his bouncing mullet, hook nose, Spofforth-like glare, and love of heavy metal music.

Though he was a regular in the side's bowling line-up in the first half of the 2000s, he only ended up playing 52 of a possible 92 Tests after his 1996 debut, thanks to an assortment of physical ailments and breakdowns. In partnership with Glenn McGrath, he was half of Australia's most statistically successful strike bowling pair ever; where McGrath made the ball do just enough, Gillespie possibly made it do too much, eliciting all too many plays and misses.

He impressed early, with 30 wickets at 20 runs apiece across seven Tests against South Africa and England in his first year in international cricket, and took seven wickets in the Perth Test of the return Ashes series late in 1998 before injury ruled him out of the rest of the series. He harvested 18 wickets (6 for 40 in the fourth innings in Melbourne) in the first three matches of the home series against West Indies, followed by 13 in the three Tests of the epic India series of 2001. When Australia next came to India, on the triumphant tour of 2004, he was to the fore in the 2-1 win, taking nine wickets in the momentum-shifting win in Nagpur.

Gillespie bowled long spells in the hottest conditions - always uncomplainingly, and always with the seam upright and the ball jagging both ways. That ability to persevere manifested itself best when he turned his first Test century into an unbeaten 201 after coming in as a nightwatcher.

A second first-class century came in 2007 at Yorkshire, but Gillespie announced his retirement from first-class cricket the following season and signed a three-year contract with the unofficial Indian Cricket League. He headed back to Yorkshire, as coach this time, a few years later, and guided them to back-to-back Championship wins in 2014 and 2015. He also served for over a decade as head coach of Adelaide Strikers in the BBL, and for a brief, unhappy few months in 2024 as Test coach of Pakistan.