Lizaad Williams

Raw pace is a blessing, one Lizaad Williams has in plenty. A product of natural talent and flair, he first came into the reckoning in the under-19 World Cup of 2012. With the ability to clock 140kph with regularity, he made the pundits sit up and take notice.

Born and raised in Vredenburg , he started off in the domestic circuit with Boland in the 2012/13 season, finishing with 24 wickets at a miserly average of 17. Inconsistency though has been pretty consistent with him ever since. In a country never short of tearaway quicks, Williams found it hard to break into the national setup. Nonetheless, his break came in early 2021 when he was named in both the ODI and T20I squads for a home-series against Pakistan. While he didn’t feature in the ODIs, he made his T20I debut in the absence of some of the side’s senior stars who’d left due to IPL commitments. His ODI debut came later in the same year against Ireland and he picked up a wicket off his very first delivery. His Test debut came against Bangladesh in 2022.

While he was named a reserve for the 2021 T20 World Cup, he didn’t make the cut for the 2022 edition. In 2023, however, Williams was called up as a replacement for Anrich Nortje in South Africa’s 15-man squad for the Cricket World Cup.