Michael Lumb

Michael Lumb was a fallible, but on his day a talented and highly destructive left-handed opener whose finest moment came as part of England's victorious squad in World Twenty20 in 2010. Lumb's confident strokeplay was not short of swagger and was just what England needed at the top of the order as they sought to bring more vigour to their short-form game. No respecter of tradition, he was also one of the first England cricketers to make unabashed calls for the ECB to introduce a city-based Twenty20 tournament.

Lumb, the son of prolific Yorkshire opener Richard Lumb, was born in South Africa and made his way through the junior teams in Transvaal before returning to his roots to play for Yorkshire. A hard-hitting batsman, he made his county debut in 2000, scoring 66 not out against the touring Zimbabweans. A knee injury in 2001 meant that he played only a small part in Yorkshire's success in winning the county championship that year, although he did record a maiden first-class hundred against Leicestershire. In doing so he became part of only the fourth father and son pair to score centuries for Yorkshire.

He made progress in 2002 by becoming a regular member of both the Championship and limited-overs sides and in 2003 scored close to a thousand first-class runs at an average of over 40, including two centuries and six fifties. He was selected for the ECB National Academy squad the following winter, but has failed to progress to Yorkshire's expectations and was dropped during the 2005 season. Although he averaged in the middle-thirties in 2006 with a top score of 144 he decided to leave at the end of the season and joined Hampshire.

The move galvanised his career, and his prolific Twenty20 form in 2009, where he made 442 runs from 11 games as Hampshire won the Friends Provident Trophy, including a blistering unbeaten 124 from 69 balls against Essex, earned him a $50,000 IPL contract with Rajasthan Royals. It proved to be the launch-pad to higher achievements.

On the back of an unbeaten 58 to guide England Lions to victory against the senior team in a warm-up match in Dubai, he was called in as the latest incarnation of England's Twenty20 specialist opener for the World Twenty20 in Caribbean in May 2010. His selection was a revelation as, despite a top score of 33, he routinely muscled brisk starts which set the tone that carried England to their first ever triumph in a global limited-overs event.

Injury disrupted his 2011 season, the final year of his contract with Hampshire, but he was identified by Nottinghamshire as batsman who could bolster an unreliable top order in four-day cricket and director of cricket Mick Newell, who remembered Lumb's career-best Championship score of 219 against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 2010, signed him on a three-year contract.

His debut season for Nottinghamshire yielded more than 1,400 runs across all formats, including 910 in the Championship. Although he did not make the starting XI in any of their matches, Lumb regained his place in the England Twenty20 squad in time for the defence of the World Twenty20 before playing a starring role for Sydney Sixers in the Champions League in South Africa, hitting an unbeaten 82 off 42 balls as the Australian franchise beat Lions by 10 wickets in the final.

Suspicions that Lumb might increasingly become a T20 specialist were confounded in 2013 when he returned more than 1,000 Championship runs. He skipped the IPL auction in 2014, saying he had "ticked that box" but England - and Sydney - retained an interest in his T20 skills and he was named in England's squad for World T20 in Bangladesh.

Lumb teamed up with Riki Wessels in 2016 to set what was a new record stand for a List A game in England: 342 in 39.2 overs in a Royal London Cup game against Northants at Trent Bridge, beating the 318 amassed by India's Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly against Sri Lanka in Taunton in the 1999 World Cup. Lumb, who made 184, commented that it was one of those days "when the stars were all aligned". Nottinghamshire's 445 for 8 in their 50 overs was the second highest total in List A matches worldwide at the time. Astonishingly, despite being stricken by injuries, Northants got within 20 runs. Lumb also hit the mark with a 17-ball T20 50 against Leicestershire, one of the fastest in Notts' history, but his poor Championship form had much in keeping with a Notts relegation season.

Lumb's final summer came in Notts' triumphant 2017 season when they added promotion in the Championship to both limited-overs trophies. He was part of the Notts side that beat Surrey in the Royal London Cup final at Lord's, but then retired later that month because of an ankle injury.

ESPNcricinfo staff