Clive Lloyd

Perhaps the most famous spectacle-wearer ever to have stalked the covers, Clive Lloyd was one of the great captains of all time. With his hulking six-foot frame and a slight air of professorial detachment, he was the natural leader of the great West Indian side of the late 1970s and early 1980s and, in 1975, his century at Lord's secured victory in the inaugural World Cup. And yet, Lloyd's career might have been ended before it began, when his eyesight began to deteriorate in his early teens.

At the age of 12, Lloyd was already a budding schoolboy cricketer, when he was poked in the eye with a ruler while breaking up a fight between two younger boys. At first he took no real notice of it, but before long he was unable to read the blackboard in the classroom, and he had to squint to make out the score while batting in cricket matches. But most importantly of all, he was failing to sight the ball properly. "I was getting out lbw far too frequently," he wrote in his autobiography. "The umpire couldn't have been wrong every time."

So out came the spectacles, and a legend was born. Lloyd's prowess as a fielder was ample proof of the benefits they provided to his game, while in a 22-year career, they enabled him to score more than 30,000 runs, with 79 centuries.