Steve Waugh was like the character played by Peter Sellers in ‘The Party’. Playing a hopeless actor and a ham, Sellers turns his bit part in a battle scene into a major nuisance by refusing to die (as the script asked him to) and repeatedly getting up, bloodied but unbowed, to blow his bugle.

Waugh was the man who would not die. He won the ICC Cricket World Cup in 1999 through a magical innings against South Africa when he disregarded the director and rewrote the script.

What’s more, he also delivered a great line. Having floored a dolly from the Aussie captain, Herschelle Gibbs suffered the further humiliation of being at the receiving end of one of the most legendary lines in cricket: “You’ve just dropped the World Cup, son.” And so he had.

On the subcontinent, Steven Waugh is adored. As much for his doughty nature (he beat India by one run, bowling the final over in the 1987 ICC Cricket World Cup), as his eccentricity (he carried the same tattered red hanky in his pocket for the best part of two decades), and his generosity (he is a regular contributor to charity in Calcutta).

Australia were almost down and out in the 1999 ICC Cricket World Cup, when Waugh’s side won seven games in a row to win the trophy for the second time. And that makes him a legend.