3. Gary Kirsten
The gritty South African opening batsman Gary Kirsten is next in this list. Kirsten while playing against Pakistan in 2003 was his usual self as he was building yet another big innings. Then the Rawalpindi Express Shoaib Akhtar took flight and delivered a brutal bouncer. Kirsten was late on the full and the ball hit him extremely hard on his face. Even with the protection of the helmet, the South African suffered an injury. He got retired hurt and was immediately taken for an X-Ray.
The reports showed that Kirsten had a broken nose. In the second innings of South Africa, Kirsten did the unthinkable and again came out to bat. His efforts although went in vain as Pakistan registered a comfortable victory. But this Test match that took place in Lahore will always be remembered for Kirsten’s heroics and will go down as one of the brave instances when cricketers battled injuries to play for their team.
