Top 10 finishers of all time in white-ball cricket

3. Lance Klusener

The modern-day trailblazer, who revolutionized the art of power hitting at the backend of an ODI inning, Lance Klusener was way ahead of his time. And, we got to see that at its hilt during the entirety of 1999 and especially that World Cup in England.

And, it wasn’t just a wild slog. There was a method to Zulu’s madness. His plan, during the nets, was simple. Tune the bowling machine to bowl in the slot- either low full tosses of half volleys- and hit them as hard as possible, again and again, and again.

“It was 500, 600 balls a day in that area, and just hitting them as hard as I could and as straight as possible. My thoughts were that if he misses his spot then I can take advantage of that.”  No batsman had ever single-mindedly planned how to approach the death overs, as Klusener did. In an era where strike-rates barely crossed the 90-run-mark, Zulu was the Ferrari racing tuk-tuks.

His last-ball boundary to win a tense run-chase in Napier 1999 against New Zealand or some of his match-turning vignettes- 12* off four balls against India to help Proteas to a successful run-chase; 52* off 45 to propel his team to a match-winning total of 9-199 against Sri Lanka or his 48*  from 40 balls against England; 46* off 41 to seal a tense run-chase against a formidable Pakistani attack and of-course that unbeaten 31 off 16 balls in the semi-final- during the World Cup, gave a different dimension to a batsman’s approach in the final overs of One-day cricket.

Overall, Klusener struck at 93.24 for his 1104 runs in 53 innings while batting in the lower-middle order, which shots up 97.24 during successful run-chases.