An accumulator who is virtually impossible to distract at the crease, Michael Hussey waited a decade before becoming an overnight star.

Others might have given up, or at least relaxed, during all that time in the backblocks of the Sheffield Shield and County Championship, but Hussey maintained the intensity and was soon living in a statistical world occupied by few others.

After two years in the Test side his average rose to 86.18; it had already taken 29 ODIs for his mean to drop below 100. In just 166 days he become the fastest player to 1000 Test runs, but he was reluctant to dwell on the records because he knew the sky-high ride wouldn't last.