Navjot Singh Sidhu's cricket had a volatile touch to it. A dour batsman capable of dogged defence, he could also be a marauding strokeplayer who loved tearing spinners apart. Dubbed a strokeless wonder at the start of his Test career in 1983-84, he returned with a vengeance in the 1987 World Cup, where he began with four fifties in a row, hitting over the top merrily. Eventually, in a career spanning 51 Tests and 136 one-day internationals, both sides of his personality played themselves out. Sidhu's finest moment in Tests was his 201 against West Indies in 1996-97, an act of supreme endurance lasting 11 hours. And his ruthlessness against spinners was legion. He cracked eight sixes in 124 against Sri Lanka - Muralitharan and all - in 1993-94, and hammered four fifties in five innings against the Australians in 1997-98, singling out Shane Warne for a personalised spanking. In his second career as a commentator, though, only the ebullience was in evidence, as Sidhu began mauling the spoken word with a unique, entertaining concoction of mixed metaphors and garbled clichés.
Amit Varma