Klusener’s Opus — South Africa v England, 1999

Notwithstanding a period as one of the best all-rounders in the game, Lance Klusener’s time as a professional cricketer was hindered by a succession of injuries as varied in length and gravity as the average Scott Boswell over. But, boy, he could play.

Klusener’s aggressive batting was initially seen as merely a thrilling complement to his tight seam bowling but would eventually, on the back of some stellar knocks in the late 1990s, come to define him as a cricketer. Though his transformation from background metronome to star turn was for the most part limited to the one-day game, this Dave Grohl of millennial South African cricket occasionally showed he could be as destructive a bat at Test level as in the shorter forms. One such demonstration occurred at Port Elizabeth in 1999 — undoubtedly Klusener’s annus mirabilis — when he made 174 against an England attack containing luminaries such as Darren Gough, Andrews Caddick and Flintoff, and Phil Tufnell.

There’s a school of thought that associates the word “flair” with a certain flamboyant orthodoxy, a visual brilliance stemming from displays of exaggerated technical proficiency that lead to a player being considered “attractive” to watch. But this type of mainstream appeal was by no means Lance’s hallmark. Economical with his movement and technically unconventional, he was aesthetically stimulating in the same way as a Magic Eye; only after persistent staring would something beautiful emerge from what was at first sight a blurry collection of shapes and colours. He was naturally gifted, sure, but there was something vaguely analogous about his talent; his skill originated in a different part of the brain — like the lingering artistic bent of a data-entry clerk hankering after a life of creative frivolity — lending him to some extent the appearance of having a slogger’s mind in the body of a nurdler.

When he trundled out of the St George’s Oval pavilion that day in 1999, South Africa were in a spot of bother, having lost their top five for just 146 runs. In those days the Proteas boasted an order that ran as deep as an Alistair Cook field-set — Mark Boucher came in at number nine back then — but it was clear that something was needed from Klusener. In the early stages of the knock — even during the more expansive, Lance-whack moments — Klusener seemed edgy, elbows kept so tight to his torso it was almost as if he was hefting a sack of potatoes under each arm. Alongside footwork as absent as the morality of an oil company executive, this spud-lugging, shuffling style gave an awkward, irrational symmetry to Lance’s batting. Yet, with a succession of those strange, cramped shots, the foundation was laid for what was to come.

A partnership of 106 with Jonty Rhodes soon strengthened South Africa’s position, while another century of runs was then shared by Klusener and Boucher to bring the total towards 400. As Lance’s score accelerated past the milestones, the strokes became more brutal, more outrageously flaying. Fours were smashed and sixes were thumped, all with that zealot’s backlift and the unusually punchy, suddenly curtailed post-shot flail that was more flour than flourish. There were weird cuts over the top, windmilled over puzzled gullies with a jerky thrash of the arms in tandem with the corresponding footwork: a stunted, petulant afterthought of a karate kick aimed at the bowler. There was the ubiquitous off-drive-dragged-into-an-on-drive so characteristic of Lance’s batting, but there was also a host of proper shots: boundaries planted through cover with a powerful, angry muscularity, or ruthless straight hitting that left the bowlers open-mouthed.

England’s bowlers were simply unable to match him. Even Andrew Caddick, skipping and jerking his way to the wicket like a gruesome combine harvester made entirely of reconstituted elbows and knees, couldn’t get much joy from Klusener and was reduced to the gangly, shrugging figure that was to become so familiar to England fans as the years went by. Chris Silverwood silverwooded through the overs but was, essentially, Chris Silverwood (he did, however, take the wicket of Jacques Kallis in this match). Tufnell — by the end of the innings almost apologetically churning out the throw-downs — took some tap, while an Andrew Flintoff still in his Test infancy was ineffective against the adaptable Klusener.

Coming back for a second to bring up his 150, Klusener should have been run out by Alec Stewart, who showed a goalkeeper’s instinct by palming the ball well away from the stumps with Klusener several time-zones from the safety of his crease. Finally Darren Gough, buzzing back-and-forth to the crease like a low-slung hair-clipper desperately tired of shaving heads, dismissed Lance with a slower ball expertly disguised as a misdirected full toss. An innocuous way to end an innings that thrilled and confounded in equal measure.

As Lance strolled off the wicket, despondent at having come so close to the double-hundred, yet elated at his contribution, it was clear that this innings was a statement on his part that this was no one-trick-pony, cow-corner-botherer in action, but rather a man who trusted his eye and his lithe strength to get him through in place of technical precision. He was, perhaps, simply unlucky that Test selectors often pigeonholed him as a one-day specialist capable of holding up an end and carving a few runs in the lower order.

Nevertheless, in an era when preening, technocratic cricketers were becoming the norm, Klusener’s rawness stood out, not just in relation to his batting but also to the man himself. There was a masculine edge to him, a veldt canniness that was so different to most of his contemporaries, and though he was in the eyes of many one of the great “nearly men” of 1990s and 2000s Test cricket — regardless of his success in the limited overs format — Klusener was a rare talent, a sportsman whose very dissimilarity made him memorable. With a little more trust, better fortune with injuries, and a few more knocks even half as good as the one in Port Elizabeth, we might have ended up talking about Lance Klusener as one of the great South African Test all-rounders.