Profile:
A
superbly talented cricketer, Darren Lehmann is a free scoring
left-handed batsman and underestimated left arm orthodox spin
bowler.
The captain of South Australia since 1998, he is a stockily-built
strokeplayer who treats spectators to an audacious mixture of
swashbuckling aggression and deft finesse.
From the time that he burst on to the first-class scene in
Australia as a 17-year-old in the 1987-88 season, Lehmann has
built an imposing record in both his home country and with county
team Yorkshire in England. By the end of the 2001-02 season, he
had amassed close to 18,000 first class runs at an average that
has consistently hovered well above the 50 mark; been an integral
member of winning Sheffield Shield sides in 1990-91 and 1995-96
and the victorious County Championship team of 2001; and risen to
first place on the list of all-time leading run scorers in
Sheffield Shield/Pura Cup history.
Nevertheless, while he has represented South Australia,
Victoria (between 1990-91 and 1992-93) and Yorkshire with great
distinction, Lehmann has remained overlooked by Australia's Test
selectors for the vast majority of his career.
A record that includes close to 60 first-class centuries has
so far yielded the matter of only five Tests. In this respect,
Lehmann also achieved a telling milestone by playing more
first-class cricket and scoring more runs than any other
Australian in history before making his Test debut - in Bangalore
in 1998.
Lehmann's talents have won him far more regular opportunities
in Australia's one-day international team - particularly during
the late 1990s, and upon the restructuring of the country's
limited-overs squad in early 2002 - but he has also been made to
court disappointment by various selection panels in that arena.
Notable highlights have come in the form of centuries in Pakistan
and the Caribbean, and arguably the biggest of all arrived upon
the hallowed turf at Lord's when he was the man to whom the
glorious honour of hitting the winning 1999 World Cup runs fell.
Otherwise,
however, his penchant for crashing bowlers to all parts of a
ground with an intent that borders on the contemptuous has
remained limited to the confines of domestic cricket.
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