At the end of June 1999, just six days before the start of the Test series between England and New Zealand, Nasser Hussain was named as Alec Stewart's successor in the hotseat that is the England captaincy.

 

Brought up in England but born in Madras, India, Hussain made his England debut as a promising 21-year-old against the West Indies in 1989. It was a baptism of fire Unsurprisingly he had a difficult time and, despite playing with a broken wrist in the final game and scoring 34 and 35, he was discarded.

 

Maturity, allied to his already superior technique, earned him that place back in the side four years later, for the last four Tests of the Ashes series. He subsequently went on tour to the West Indies but failed to play in a single Test and had to be content with a successful spell in charge of the England A team before making it back into the Test side to face India in 1996.

 

Hussain has a wide range of strokes, excelling in the drive and cut, but he combines that wristy, style with face-of-the-bat defence. His natural instinct is to attack but he has great powers on concentration, makes few errors of judgement and has the patience to build big innings, as shown by highest score - a double century against Australia at Edgbaston in 1997.