The Sajid-Liam shoot-out
Will
25-Feb-2013
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After his fumbles in the field yesterday, Monty Panesar was described by Simon Briggs in The Telegraph as “a natural physical comedian, a worthy successor to John Cleese”. Briggs, like many writers in today’s editions, also makes comparisons with Liam Plunkett and Sajid Mahmood – especially with the imminent return of Steve Harmison.
Temperamentally, they are from different planets. Plunkett comes across as an all-round athlete who has turned himself into a cricketer by hard, methodical graft. […] Mahmood has more of a natural gift. He lopes in lazily, then coils and uncoils in one loose-limbed blur of movement.
In the same paper, Martin Johnson is rather less critical of Monty
Firstly, he's a very fine spin bowler and secondly, if cricket needs to remember that it's part of the entertainment industry then Monty's fielding certainly fulfils that part of the equation. He missed two chances yesterday, one at mid-off that was not so much reminiscent of a finely coordinated athlete as of a man trying to put out a chip-pan fire with a wet tea cloth. And yet you can't fault the man's body language. He always looks as though he wants the ball to come to him, even if his 10 team-mates are rather hoping that it never does.