Lance Klusener was one of the arguably one of the best all rounders cricket has ever seen.
Klusener, nicknamed “Zulu”, because of his fluency with Zulu language spoken in South Africa, was one of the best all-rounders in the world during 1990s and early 2000s and one of the pioneers of power batting as a finisher.
But not much is known about him after the heart breaking run out in the 1999 World Cup semifinal against Australia.
Klusener, who averaged over 40s in batting and under 30s in bowling was a captains dream. In 1999 World Cup, he went on to win 5 consecutive Man of the match in the World Cup, the record which is still to be broken.
Leaving the disappointment of 1999 World Cup behind and accounting himself only for the heart breaking run out that he got anxious and despite having 2 balls still remaining, he ran when there was no run and people should not blame Donald, Klusener was also part of the 2003 World Cup squad.
South Africa got eliminated in group stage only and Klusener had a decent World Cup once again.
With 3 years of military training in him, his international career got tappered because of public dispute with then newly appointed South African captain Grame Smith which found Klusener to be “disruptive force” to the younger players.
Klusener last played for South Africa at the age of 33 against WestIndies in Oval, 2004.
Coaching stint :
After coaching Dolphins, which is a state in South Africa for 4 years, Klusener started his international coaching stint with Zimbabwe.
From 2016-2018, he was Zimbabwe batting coach, he also coached Lyca Kovai Kings, which represents city of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) in 2016.
In 2018 he coached in Bangladesh Premier League, was assistant coach of Delhi Cricket Team and was also associated with Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals in IPL.
From 2019 to 2021, he was the head coach of Afghanistan Cricket team and under his coaching, Afghanistan won 9 out of 14 t20 matches.
In 2022, he again was reappointed as batting coach of Zimbabwe.
As of now, he is the coach of Tripura state team in India.
Klusener, now 52 was once in a lifetime kind of player, his power hitting with baseball like backlift and accuracy in bowling helped South Africa in a lot of crunch games, he retired early but his coaching career has bloomed nicely and he is enjoying his career post retirement.
As per recent news, Lance Klusener has joined UP warriors in the role of assistant coach for IPL 2024.
As for his bat, his bat named “SS Zulu” was superheavy and weighed around 1.53 kg.
