Sharp nicks

We salute XI players whose handles go a bit beyond the addition of a "y" to their names. Warning: Aussie-heavy

Bundy R Bear next to spitting image Cameron White © Diageo, Getty Images

Ronnie (Andrew McDonald)
Has the surname and the hair to pass for a clown who hawks product for an certain American fast food giant. And when he's drunk, he probably has a shiny red nose as well.

Castro (Fidel Edwards)
His lush beard, revolutionary Marxist speeches in the dressing room, and habit of smoking fine Cuban cigars while fielding at fine leg evidently earned Edwards this fine monicker.

Andy G (Nathan Bracken)
Because he looks (a tiny bit) like a more aquiline, less bearded, blond version of Australian Idol host Andrew Gunsberg. What do you mean that's not reason enough?

Bear (Cameron White)
Another resemblance-based nickname, and this time it's pretty much dead-ringer territory, as the picture above will show. Bairnsdale, Victoria's finest big hitter-cum-legspinner owes his nick to the Bundaberg Rum Bear, which, as any fool can see, is white. White, get it?

Figjam (Kevin Pietersen)
Fits so like the proverbial glove, you could fool us into thinking it was tailormade for him. Expands to "F*** Im Good, Just Ask Me". You better believe it.

Catfish (James Hopes)
Apparently struggles to grow facial hair, but when he does it sprouts like catfish whiskers. Better keep him away from Symmo and Haydos, then.

Lee: quite the assassin © Getty Images

Scooter (Herschelle Gibbs)
From the pathos-filled days when Gibbsy, age 16, wasn't allowed to drive a car, and his mates at Western Province joked that they would buy him a scooter. "It was Eric Simons really," Gibbs revealed darkly, many years later.

Diggler (Dirk Nannes)
After Dirk Diggler, a fictional porn star from the film Boogie Nights, and no, before your mind wanders into the gutter, it's not to do with the size of anyone's endowment - though, being a family website, we wouldn't know either way.

Sloon (Shaun Tait)
A name that stuck after a tour of Sri Lanka, during which a hotel employee, unable to get his tongue around the hard-to-pronounce "Shaun" (as opposed to, say, "Warnakulasuriya") came up with Sloon. Oh those fun-loving Sri Lankans.

Piggy (Scott Styris)
Not a Muppets reference and not a tribute to a love of ham, apparently. Whatever could it be, then? The official version says it's from Sty (pig sty, see?). The ruder version says it's a tribute to his less-than-supermodel-like features.

Oswald (Brett Lee)
Hardly used, like Hollywood and Afghanistan, this one apparently came about when Steve Waugh once read out a team list that featured Lee's brother Shane, Ian Harvey, and Lee himself at numbers 7, 8 and 9.

© Cricinfo

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