Profile:

Name: Morné Nico van Wyk
Date of Birth: 20/03/1979
Highest honour/achievements: Proteas
Favourite food: Anything spicy you can eat with your hands!
Goals/ambitions: Apart from the obvious sporting ones, being a successful husband and a father is the ultimate.
Sport Heroes: Adventurer, explorer and motivational speaker Bear Grylls, the youngest person to climb Mt Everest.
Hobbies: Away from cricket and being a petrolhead, I am also into golf and fly-fishing.

Biography

If Morné van Wyk hadn't followed his heart and become a cricketer, he would probably be racing around tracks in souped-up performance cars.

The 32-year-old Proteas cricketer describes himself as a bit of a petrol-head and is rapidly developing an interest in muscle cars, having also had a motorbike in his younger days.

He became involved in cricket through his father, having been introduced to it at around age nine - but he was interested in a huge variety of sport before finally specialising in cricket.

For someone who has been involved in team sports, it's the individual sports that he looks to when he wishes to get away from it all, whether it be on the golf course or fly fishing. And thus is it no surprise that one of the biggest inspirations is someone who is not a mainstream sportsman but rather an adventurer in the form of Bear Grylls, the youngest person to climb the world's highest mountain.

In January this year the former Grey College wicketkeeper/batsman created his own "Everest" for Proteas batsmen of the future: he blitzed India's bowling attack with a 24-ball half-century (it included four fours and five sixes); the fastest ever recorded by a South African. It's going to take some doing to beat that!