Nasser Hussain

Born in India, Naseer Hussain is a former England cricket player. Hussain was born to an English mother, who later converted to Islam, and an Indian father. Hussain grew up in England and made his cricket debut playing domestic cricket with Essex in 1987. He was a right-handed batsman and a right arm leg break bowler.

Hussain played for the under-11 team at the age of 8 and was the youngest player to have played at the under-15 match at the age of 12. However, Hussain mysteriously lost his spin bowling ability at the age of 15. The sudden loss made a grave effect on his performance. But without grieving about his loss, Hussain converted himself into a batsman and improved his batting abilities.

His debut for test cricket came in 1990 against West Indies with England winning the match with flying colors, but lost the series with 2-1. Later, in 1999, Hussain was selected to play for the 3rd test match of the Ashes. He performed well by scoring 71 runs and an unbeaten 47 runs. After the series, he became a regular at the test match front for his team. In the test series against India in 1996, Hussain batted at number 3 position and scored a marvelous 128 in the first innings, thus earning him a Man of the Match title.

In 1999, Hussain was appointed the test captain for England and held that post for 4 years till 2003 having stood as the captain in 45 test matches. Hussain is one of the best captains England had for his 17 victories in test matches. Hussain led his team to a magical successive 4 series win because of which England reached the third position in the ICC Test Championship rankings. Hussain also captained his country’s one-day international team as well the test team until the 2003 Cricket World Cup. After the 2003 World Cup, Michael Vaughan was appointed the new captain of the ODI squad.

Hussain has played a total of 77 test matches scoring a total of 6,342 runs from them. His batting average for test matches was 50.33 and the same for ODI matches was 41.07. Hussain has averaged 50.78 in first class matches and 42.18 in List A matches for his batting.

Hussain’s final test series as a captain was one against South Africa in 2003 where England barely escaped an embarrassment and ended the series in a draw. He continued to play in the team as a regular batsman till 2004. After retirement, Hussain became a commentator on television for Sky Sports.

Career Highlights

Hussain was awarded the Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 2003.

He was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 2001.