Nasser Hussain

As a child, Nasser Hussain was diagnosed as having a stigmatism of his left eye, a condition that causes blurring. In that proud manner that would later become his trademark, he refused to wear his glasses, and carrying on using his perfect right eye to keep his cricket on track. It was only in the mid-1990s that he bowed to advice from his ophthalmologist, and took to wearing a solitary contact lens on the weaker eye.

In 2001, however, after five years of fiddling around in dusty dressing-rooms and leaving his eyewear lying in the wrong place, Hussain decided it was time to opt for a more permanent solution. So, at the end of that year's Ashes series, he underwent corrective laser surgery in central London.

Hussain took little time to demonstrate the benefits of his new 20/20 vision. He scored a typically defiant century on a wickedly seaming pitch in Christchurch, followed up with another big hundred against India at Lord's, and in the final years of his career, he helped cement England as one of the leading sides in the world.

His penultimate stroke in Test cricket summed up his attitude. England were five runs from victory and Hussain was on 98, when he cracked Chris Martin through the covers for a glorious four, before sealing the win with his very next delivery. Two shots of absolute majesty to put the seal on England's victory, and provide the perfect epitaph to his career. No doubt he was seeing the ball like a football.