Abhishek Nayar - the newest Ian Harvey

Like Ian Harvey, the ageing Lance Klusener and Ben Hollioake before him, and perhaps countless county cricketers, Abhishek Nayar seems cut out for the shorter versions of the game. Some time back, I saw snippets of his attacking batsmanship in Mumbai's succesful 2006 Ranji campaign. He looked good, but it was evident that his batting alone, or bowling alone was not enough to vault him into the Indian Test side - certainly not with the surfeit of riches it has now. But in the 20-20 game, he is a potential superstar, and i would place a cricket bet on him dominating this format. He can, like Joginder Sharma, come in and do his bowling in one-over spells, and can pick up a wicket, and there is a good chance he will not get thrammed. As for his batting, he did what the illustrious redneck Saffer predecessor might have done - take the team to the brink of victory with exciting strokes and shovelled singles, and then have a brain explosion to take a single and let Ashish Nehra take strike.

South Africans I like

South Africans have been taking more than their fair share of hard knocks from Aussie bloggers. There are a few that even I don't like, but here's a few that are in my list of favourite cricketers. There are more, but after today, who wants to give them more reasons to congragulate themselves?

All in the interests of cosmic balance.

1. Jhonty Rhodes - self explanatory
2. Alan Donald - self explanatory - used to love Tendulkar-Donald duels.
3. Lance Klusener - for doing to cricket, what machine guns did to movies, revealing beauty through sustained ugliness, and not in an Ashwell Prince sort of way.
4. Fanie DeViliers - I understood as a little kid watching him bowl at the likes of the horribly diffident Sujith Somasunder, the ultimate potential of the slower ball.