Brendan Taylor

His early years were uneven. He often got set and then lost his wicket chasing aggressive shots, and his maturity showed only in flashes. He was in the squad for the 2007 World Cup without making an impact, but at the first T20 World Cup that same year he steered a chase of 139 against Australia with an unbeaten 60 from 45 balls, sealing a famous win. Besides batting, he could bowl part-time spin and kept wicket when Tatenda Taibu was unavailable. His first ODI hundred, an unbeaten 118 against Bangladesh in 2009, came in a one-wicket defeat.

Taylor then began turning good starts into big scores, including centuries against Sri Lanka and South Africa, the latter an unbeaten 145. He made 80 against Sri Lanka at the 2011 World Cup and was given the captaincy afterwards. When Zimbabwe resumed Test cricket, he scored 176 in the one-off Test against Bangladesh, with a hundred in the second innings, becoming only the second Zimbabwean to reach three figures in his first game as captain. Against New Zealand in 2011 he became the first Zimbabwean to hit centuries in consecutive ODIs.

Abroad, he was Wellington's top scorer with 207 runs in the HRV T20 Cup in December 2011, and in 2013 he joined the Chittagong Kings for $30,000, later taking over as captain from Mahmudullah and finishing third in the league with 316 runs. In August 2014 he handed the ODI and T20I captaincy to Elton Chigumbura under a split-captaincy plan, after which his form dipped.

At the 2015 World Cup he struck back-to-back hundreds against Ireland and India, and his 433 runs set a record for a Zimbabwean at a single edition. Aged 29, he then took a Kolpak deal with Nottinghamshire, citing financial reasons and declining a central contract, though his early county spell was inconsistent. In September 2017 he announced his return to Zimbabwe ahead of qualification for the 2019 World Cup, and was also picked by the Stellenbosch Kings for the Global T20 League.