To some extent, Victoria's Laurie Harper has been beset by a reputation of being too negative and too slow scoring a batsman to command much respect during his years in Australian interstate cricket. The grittiness and durability that he conceives from his taut stance at the wicket have indeed been cast by some observers as being ill-suited to the Bushrangers' desire over recent summers to assemble a more attacking middle order. Such a reputation, though, has tended to mask the reality that Harper has been a loyal servant of Victorian cricket and one of the State's most consistently effective players for the vast majority of a first class career which began (briefly) in 1992-93 and then blossomed shortly after his recall in 1996-97. Proof of this can be discerned from Harper's attainment of the Victorian Player of the Year title in 1997-98 and from an examination of an overall record which reveals that he has already accumulated well in excess of two thousand first class runs. As he is a player who relies on an uncomplicated technique and tends to eschew any extravagant shots until he is well set, Harper has always been a difficult player for bowlers to dismiss. That he has also over recent times gradually eliminated a slight weakness in defending deliveries moving away from him outside the line of off stump, and continued to enhance his status as a fine slips fieldsman, has only inflated his value. (John Polack, April 2000)