For years, cricket was a game of specialists. You were expected to be good at what you were good at, and that was it. In the last couple of decades that’s all changed, and if you’re not competent in at least two disciplines then you won’t last long.
Even now, though, nobody expects you to dominate with both bat and ball. But 20 years ago, in the last World Cup to be staged in England, Lance Klusener did exactly that. Klusener was a bowler you would conservatively describe as “slippery”, but he was also a power hitter, a man described by Frank Keating as “farmer strong”, who played Twenty20 cricket four years before anyone thought to invent it.
Written by Nick Miller
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/may/22/lance-klusener-world-cup-1999-cricket-south-africa under the title “The Spin | When Lance Klusener set the standard for cricketing all-rounders”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
