The Gentle Giant
Inzy remains one of the elite batsmen in contemporary cricket, and one of my favorites. His stoic demeanor, intimidating presence, unphased temperament and languid grace make him a fascinating sight on a cricket pitch. Mike Selvey pays his homage to this last of the breed non-conformist in this humorous piece.
November 8, 2005 at 12:23 am
Haha!! I like the title “The king of taking it easy”. The one thing that I will always remember about the “Big Potato” is the time he went into the crowd to stick up for himself in Toronto (Sahara Cup). That was hilarious.
But, on a serious note, if he had ever taken care of his body even a little bit he could have been in the class of a Sachin or a Lara. Unfortunately, he chose not to.
November 8, 2005 at 4:15 am
It’s not a matter of him choosing to be like he is - he is innately like he is now: big. And too much is often made of his weight, I personally love him just the way he is, and anything but a heavy Inzi would be unacceptable to me so used to have I become to this figure of his.
But the thing I love about his batting most is how much time he seems to have to play his shots. That is why he is such a good player of both fast and spin bowling, he plays both very late, after having allowed the ball to do what ever it wants, and that’s a sign of great batsmanship.
The best thing any one ever wrote about Inzi IMHO was when Osman Samiuddin (from Cricinfo) described him as some one who “bats like a mountain but scores like a river”.
PS: Thanks for your comment on Sundries Partick, I didn’t hide my blog, just that when I came to Line and Length for the first time, Sundries had not begun by then!
November 10, 2005 at 7:06 pm
I think he is a good cricketer, though I find it hard to believe that he can be so poor against Australia.