Australia’s former leg-spinner Arthur Mailey once said: “If ever I bowl a maiden over, it’s not my fault but the batsman’s.”
Those were the days when finger spinners could bowl “with the lavishness of a millionaire.” Or to borrow Neville Cardus’ phrase: “persuade a cricket ball to go through a kaleidoscope of changing curving flight and capricious gyrations” without thinking of the economy of runs.
In the days of heavy bats and shorter boundaries, left-arm spinner Mudhsuden Singh Panesar (nom de plume Monty Panesar) has held aloft a fading art.
When Monty made his international debut against India at Nagpur, he seemed to possess all the key attributes of a gyp artist. His first scalp was that of the master, Sachin Tendulkar. The supreme confidence in his own ability rubbed on his game in the England-Pakistan Tests in 2006 as he spun England to a 3-0 series win.
His hour of ordeal came in the Ashes series Down Under in 2006-07. After being overlooked for the first two Tests, he earned the nod at WACA (Perth). And what a start it was! Five prized hunts in his first game against the arch-rivals.
However the glory was short-lived as Monty faced up to the jaw-dropping realities of international cricket. Adam Gilchrist tore into him – including 24 runs in one over – to record the second fastest hundred in Tests.
Hasn’t had a full series in one-day cricket but played a significant role in England’s triumph in the Commonwealth Bank series – that earned him a ticket to the World Cup in the Caribbean.