5 knocks that severely affected the bowler's career

#4 Lara puts brakes on budding career of RJ Peterson

In December 2003, West indies toured South Africa, with the hopes of healing the wounds inflicted in the previous series. But with a batting line up largely dependent on Lara for the reversal in fortunes and a relatively inexperienced batting line up, chances of a Caribbean victory over Proteas was highly unlikely.

Batting first on a belter, South Africa compiled 561 in the first essay, largely thanks to the tons from Smith and Kallis. In reply, West Indies too had a solid start with Darren Ganga compiling a carefully made fifty. The contest took a real turn when Robin Peterson was introduced into the attack, which resulted in Lara turning on his absolute beast mode.

Lara gave vent to his complete wrath in Peterson’s 6th over and scored 28 runs. The bowler was never able to completely recover from the blitzkrieg by Lara and he ended up with figures of 13-2-76-0.

Though Lara scored a double ton, South Africa was able to blow away West Indies' hopes of a victory pretty effortlessly. In the end, Proteas won the match by 189 runs. The match also put brakes on the prospects of Peterson grooming into the next best spinner for South Africa after Adams. Peterson hardly played 10 Tests post that over a decade, and his start-stop career never took off.

Test matches played before the knock: 4 (Over 7 Months)

Test matches played after the knock:10 (Over 14 years)