Some England cricketers are born; there was no destiny in Allan Lamb's career. Signed from Western Province as an unknown by Northamptonshire as their overseas player in 1978, he was chugging along nicely when Ken Turner, their secretary, persuaded him that South Africa were years away from returning to Test cricket and that he should invoke his English-born parent to play for England.

Lamb was to be a fixture of the England middle order for the next decade. Small, stocky, aggressive, he had a correct technique, power in his shots, and a gift for needling the bowlers. He played some of his best innings against West Indies. In the 1984 Blackwash series, he was the only England batter to score three hundreds against that fearsome attack; the rest of the team managed one. In Jamaica in 1989-90, he made another hundred, this time a match-winning one, the first for England against West Indies in 16 years.

Lamb captained England in three Tests, hopelessly, but in 1995 he came close to taking Northamptonshire to their first Championship, strutting round the county grounds like Napoleon.