Lance Klusener

Lance Klusener broke into first-class cricket as a fast bowler - mentored by Malcolm Marshall at Natal, no less - and went on to be of the most feared allrounders in the game at the turn of the 21st century, leaving his stamp on the 1999 World Cup, where he was Player of the Series for his 17 wickets and 281 runs.

Klusener was driven in his early days by a straightforward approach to bowling: hit the batter's head if you can't hit his stumps. A serious ankle injury in 1998 forced him to drop his pace and develop additional skills. He was a revelation in his debut Test, in 1996, ending with match-winning figures of 8 for 64 against India in Calcutta. In the time between then and the next World Cup, he showed glimpses of his prowess. In the 1997 Wills Quadrangular Tournament in Pakistan, he made a barnstorming fifty and took 6 for 49 against Sri Lanka, and then followed it up with 99 and a wicket in a crushing win for South Africa in the final, against the same opponent.

Klusener's baseball-style backlift and thunderous hitting have become emblematic of the 1999 World Cup, and his heroics nearly took South Africa to the final. The image of him and a hapless Allan Donald at the end of the tied Edgbaston semi-final against Australia will always be one of the most poignant in cricket.

Later that year he produced a Test-best 174 against England in Port Elizabeth. Around that time he began fulfilling the role of South Africa's second slow bowler in ODIs, bowling medium-pace cutters off just six paces of the sort that many batters found it impossible to score off. His batting began to fall away, though, and he lost his place in the side. A recall for the home 2003 World Cup failed to resuscitate his career - he was at the crease again as South Africa were infamously knocked out, having misread the Duckworth-Lewis table in a rain-affected must-win game.

Klusener's subsequent omission for the 2003 tour of England put his international career in doubt, and led to a bout of legal wrangling, but following a reconciliation he was recalled for the one-day series against West Indies in 2003-04, kept his place for the following series in New Zealand, and earned a Test recall to the tour of Sri Lanka in 2004. It was a short-lived comeback, though, and he left international cricket for good to join the African influx at Northamptonshire under Kepler Wessels.

After he quit playing, Klusener served in various coaching roles, with Dolphins in South Africa, Zimbabwe, the BPL, Afghanistan, the IPL, and elsewhere.