Lance Klusener - Interesting Facts, Trivia, And Records About 'Zulu'

Lance Klusener, who celebrates his birthday on 4th September, is one of the finest hitters of the cricket ball and a perfect finisher. Not only from the bat, but the South African was a force with a ball as well. 

Here are some interesting facts, trivia, and records about Lance Klusener: 

1) Lance Klusener was picked to play first-class for Nashua Dolphins as a fast bowler and batted at no.11 position. 

2) Klusener made his test debut against India in 1996. He didn't start well in the first inning and got hammered by the Indian batters, especially Mohammed Azharuddin. However, the debutant ended up picking his career-best test figures in the 2nd innings - 8/64. 

3) Lance Klusener was nicknamed 'Zulu' due to his fluency in speaking one of the official languages of South Africa. 

4) Lance Klusener was the hero of South Africa in the 1999 World Cup. He almost took his team to the World Cup finals. During that tournament, Klusener won four man-of-the-match awards out of nine games South Africa played. He ended up being the player of the tournament as well. 

5) Graeme Smith describer Klusener as a 'disruptive force' to the young players of the South African team which resulted in a huge controversy. However, the two players settled their dispute after some time. 

6) After retiring from cricket, Klusener completed a level-three coaching course by Cricket South Africa and became the head coach of Dolphins in 2012. 

7) Lance Klusener played 49 test matches for South Africa in which he scored 1906 runs and took 80 wickets. In 171 ODIs, Klusener made 3576 runs while picking up 192 wickets. 

8) Klusener played 197 first-class matches where he amassed 9521 runs and picked 508 wickets. His 6648 List-A runs came in 324 matches and scalped 334 wickets.