Colin Ackermann

Having relinquished his South African qualification to sign a contract with Leicestershire, taking advantage of an EU passport, Colin Ackermann was part of the late-2010s exodus that rocked cricket in his home country. Although less heralded at the time, Ackermann was a former South Africa U-19 who had topped the Sunfoil averages in 2016-17, and might have been in contention for a Test call-up had he not taken the well-trodden English county route.

His returns in county cricket were mostly solid rather than spectacular, and when he did grab the headlines it was with his occasional offspin - figures of 7 for 18 in a T20 Blast game against Birmingham Bears making him the first man to take a seven-wicket haul in the format. He captained the T20 team in his first season at Leicestershire, taking on the job full-time the following year, and in 2019 stepped up to lead the 50-over side; as well as topping the run charts in both limited-overs formats. The following summer he was unveiled as club captain, a sign of his growing importance to the county, and in 2022 he made history as his career-best 277 not out helped Leicestershire to their highest first-class score, 756 for 4 dec, and a Championship-record fifth-wicket stand of 477 with Wiaan Mulder (235 not out)

Ackermann had previous experience in the county of Leicestershire after enjoying a successful season for Kibworth in 2012. He is a product of Grey High School in Port Elizabeth, with whom he toured England. He was the leading run-scorer in the CSA Under-19 three-day competition in 2009, where he averaged 200 with two centuries.

However, when his international debut did arrive in late 2019, it was in the orange of Netherlands, and he went on to help secure qualification for both the 2020 T20 World Cup (postponed to 2021) and the subsequent event in Australia in 2022, at which his unbeaten 41 was instrumental in one of the biggest shocks of the tournament's history, as his former countrymen South Africa were eliminated in a 13-run defeat in Adelaide.
ESPNCricinfo staff