Monty's magnificent hirsuteness

Since his eight-wicket heroics at the WACA, Monty Panesar has not enjoyed the best of weeks. He went wicketless in Australia’s first innings at Melbourne, after being denied the forest of close catchers that he’d been afforded in Perth, and he had a stone-dead lbw appeal turned down when Andrew Symonds had made just 52 of his 156 runs. But today, at last, he’s got some news to cheer him up.

He’s just been named the 2006 Beard of the Year by those notable facial-fungus connoisseurs, the Beard Liberation Front. The organisation, dedicated to “the removal of a societal prejudice against the facially folically enhanced or bearded” sprung to prominence in the late 1990s, when its founder, Keith Flett, took exception to the tendency for New Labour politicians to shave off their whiskers to attract more voters.

In that regard, Panesar is clearly a worthy winner. He just missed out on the title of BBC Sports Personality of the Year, but he was still the highest-placed bearded contender in the competition - slotting into third place behind Zara Phillips and Darren Clarke. To judge by the proliferation of false beards in the stands last summer, he has done his utmost to make facial hair trendy again.

“Of course Monty has his beard for rather different reasons than say a footballer or actor with a designer beard,” admitted Flett, “but whatever the reason people have beards, we focus on the magnificence of the hirsuteness.”

Panesar had to earn his title the hard way as well, heading off a strong challenge from one of the most hirsute heroes of the 20th century, Cuba’s ailing leader Fidel Castro, not to mention a late surge from those champions of left-wing beardy-weirdiness, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the trade union leader Paul Mackney.

Cricket has been well represented in the Beard of the Year awards. Last year’s winner, rather lost beneath the mountain of accolades that came his way, was none other than Andrew Flintoff, whose light-blond fuzz was, in Flett’s opinion, a key reason behind his stunning success. Pakistan’s captain, Inzamam-ul-Haq, was also named in the shortlist, alongside the bearded wonder himself, Bill Frindall.

Strangely, though, there was no mention of the most prominent and successful beard-wearer of them all. Ever since Mohammad Yousuf let his chin revert to the state ordained by nature, he has been on a thrilling run of form that enabled him to break Viv Richards’ 30-year record for most runs in a calendar year - his final tally was 1788 runs from 11 Tests.