Mr 360 To The Slinger – Some Of Cricket’s Most Memorable Nicknames

Christmas is nearly upon us. It’s going to be a weird one. So here’s a bit of fun, mixed in with a bit of nostalgia, to sustain us through the festive period. Thanks go to Srinivas, this time writing alongside his friend and colleague Siddhartha R. 

Nicknames are interesting. Often, they reveal personality traits or idiosyncrasies that names do not. They are also usually sources of great fun. Some of them instantly bring a smile to a fan’s face.

Some popular nicknames

A few nicknames immediately came to mind when we decided to do this piece. The first of these was ‘Mr. 360’ (or should it be ‘Dr. 360’?), a sobriquet that captures AB De Villiers’s ability to play outrageous shots of most balls to any part of the cricket field. The next was ‘Turbanator’, a title given to turban-wearing Harbhajan Singh for terminating the innings of Australian batsmen 31 times in just six innings during the course of their ‘Final Frontier’ series against India in 2001.

The third was ‘Punter’, a nickname by which Ricky Ponting is well-known, and which was given to him by Shane Warne owing to his propensity to ‘punt on’ dog races in Australia back in the 1990s. Nicknames of players-turned-commentators, including ‘Beefy’ (Sir Ian Botham), ‘Bumble’ (David Lloyd), ‘Bish’ (Ian Bishop), ‘Slats’ (Michael Slater) and Chappelli (Ian Chappell), also came to mind.

Nicknames from Indian cricket

When it comes to Indian cricket, our favourite nicknames are ‘Tiger’, ‘Jumbo’, ‘Dada’ and ‘Muscles’. ‘Tiger’ was how the late Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi was popularly known, and he claimed that the appellation long preceded his achievements on the cricket field as an irrepressible (albeit one-eyed) batsman and as an inspirational captain. The nickname ‘Jumbo’ was given to Anil Kumble by Navjot Singh Sidhu – who is himself fondly referred to as Sherry or Sherry Pa sometimes – for his ability to bowl deliveries that took off from the pitch, like a jumbo jet does.

As for ‘Dada’, which means elder brother in Bangla, Sourav Ganguly became that not only to his countless Bengali fans, but also to some of the fine cricketers he captained. Venkatapathy Raju was called ‘Muscles’ somewhat paradoxically because he was too thin, but he had a heart large enough to be Kumble’s spin-bowling deputy through the nineties, once even taking 6-12 in a Test innings, and also enjoyed a fine first-class career with Hyderabad.

Nicknames from Australian cricket

Australian cricketers have had some of the most fun nicknames the game has heard of, and have even played a couple of T20 series with them printed on their jerseys. For example, Michael Clarke, who went on to become a World Cup-winning captain in the ODI format in 2015, was nicknamed ‘Pup’ when he first entered an Australian team full of greats as a 23-year-old in 2004—and the nickname stuck. Mark Waugh may have outshone his older twin brother Steve Waugh (a. k. a ‘Tugga’) for elegance ten times out of ten during their playing days, but he has always been ‘Junior’.

If ever a great bowler from the past should be pigeonholed as a line-and-length batsman slayer, that bowler would be Glenn McGrath, nicknamed the ‘Pigeon’. Lastly, ‘Warney’ may not be the most creative cognomen given to a cricketer, but in the voices of Adam Gilchrist (‘Gilly’) and Ian Healy (‘Heals’), it became fair warning to batsmen that Shane Warne, the mind-muddler, was at the bowling crease.

Nicknames from English and South African cricket

Away from the AB-Sunny (i.e. Border-Gavaskar) axis, two of Test cricket’s most prolific opening batsmen, both left-handed, have suitable nicknames. While South African Graeme Smith earned ‘Biff’ for appearing like a bulwark (and for batting like one might), Sir Alastair Cook, who cooked opposition bowling softly with marathon innings and with his gastronomic surname, is reportedly known as ‘Chef’.

South African all-rounder Lance Klusener, who was Man of the Series at the 1999 World Cup, was hailed as ‘Zulu’ because of his ability to speak the African language fluently. Klusener’s teammate Herschelle Gibbs got the moniker ‘Scooter’ as a teenager, when his teammates at Western Province playfully promised to get him one, since he could not yet drive a car.

Former English wicketkeeper-batsman Alec Stewart is called ‘The Gaffer’, according to Espncricinfo, because of “his love of the football-manager style soundbite”. Jos Buttler, England’s current wicket-keeper batsman in all formats, is sometimes referred to as ‘Universe Jos’ – a slight modification of Chris Gayle’s cheekily self-congratulatory Universe Boss – after a giant screen advertised him as such during a purple patch in the IPL of 2018.

Nicknames from elsewhere

Richard Hadlee is arguably the best cricketer New Zealand has produced; his nickname ‘Paddles’ is certainly unique, and he attributes it to his large feet. Joel Garner, one of the many superb West Indies fast bowlers who have dominated cricket, answers perfectly to the description ‘Big Bird’. Among Zimbabweans, Andy Flower was also known as ‘Petals’. If ‘Petals’ was an extension of the surname ‘Flower’, though, as it seems to be, one wonders if his brother Grant attracted a similar botanical sobriquet.

Moving on, Pakistan cricket seems to be a place for collective nicknames. While the two W’s, Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram, are often mentioned alongside other Pakistani fast-bowling icons as ‘Sultans of (Reverse) Swing’, retired batting greats Misbah Ul Haq and Younis Khan have also jointly earned a moniker—‘Mis-You’, a call which becomes louder every time a Pakistani batting line-up squanders a good position these days in Test cricket.

Elsewhere in Asia, they call Bangladeshi Mustafizur Rahman ‘Fizz’. According to the man himself, though, the hypocoristic has nothing to do with how the ball comes off the pitch when he bowls; he got it simply because former Bangladesh coach Chandika Hathurusinghe found his first name rather too long. On the other hand, Sri Lankan Lasith Malinga is dubbed ‘the slinger’ surely because of how he hurls the cricketing equivalent of missiles at the toes of unsuspecting batsmen. Perhaps, great Yorkers should henceforth be described as ‘Malingnant’?

Srinivas & Siddhartha