The end of Zulu?

In a team sport as quirkily individual as cricket, players are often credited with winning a match single-handedly, but only one man has nearly won a World Cup off his own bat. Lance Klusener went close to achieving the unthinkable in England four years ago, when his almost inhuman allround performances earned him the Player of the Tournament award. On Monday, however, he was ushered quietly out of the South African dressing-room like a bad smell.

Klusener's omission from both South Africa's Test and one-day squads for the tour of England was no surprise to those close to the game, but for his legion of fans it will come as a bolt from the blue. They should have been able to see it coming. Over the past two years Klusener's form has dipped alarmingly, with general mediocrity only occasionally energised by a matchwinning performance.

Before the World Cup the unthinkable became the unspeakable, and then quickly the question everyone was asking - was Klusener truly worth his place in the South African squad?

In the event, given the grand stage, Klusener flourished briefly, particularly in the opening game where his grandstand flourish with the bat took South Africa to within a boundary of the most unlikely of victories. But questions remained about his attitude, his commitment to the team cause and desire to remain fully fit and at the peak of his game. At squad training sessions he was sometimes seen sitting by his coffin, clearly disengaged from the activities of the rest of the squad.

When the rest of his team-mates were dealing with the immediate aftermath of the rain-affected tie with Sri Lanka at Durban which forced South Africa out of the World Cup after the first round, Klusener's reaction was to mutter that at least it meant he had more time to go fishing. The upshot has been what may prove to be an inglorious end to an international career that once took the cricket world by the scruff of the neck and shook it until it wondered whether it was possible to be shaken any more. At 31 he should not be written off, but his omission does bring with it a sense of the end of an era.

Those who were there or watching on television will have their own personal highlights of Klusener's phenomenal ability to cause mayhem and destruction. The 1999 World Cup provided several, notably the final over in that most dramatic of semi-finals against Australia, but there were others. His six off the last ball of the match to beat New Zealand in an ODI at Napier in 1999 crushed Kiwi hearts and set South African spirits soaring. In the early part of his international career he could bowl genuinely fast, too, as he proved with his fiery matchwinning 8 for 63 against India on his Test debut at Eden Gardens, Calcutta, in 1996.

His detractors will never be able to strip feats like that from the record books. Klusener's is a rare talent indeed ... rare enough to be prized in other parts of the cricket firmament. When it was suggested to him earlier this month that his career with South Africa might be over, Klusener told Wisden CricInfo that it would make little difference to him. Would he consider playing abroad? "Absolutely! I'd be off before the dust had settled," he said. "If there's a future for me in South African cricket, that's great. If there isn't, that's tough. It's a big world out there."

With offers already coming his way from both England and Australia, Klusener's days in the green-and-gold of South Africa may well be over, but his claws may not be drawn for good.