Monty Panesar

Monty Panesar is an English cricketer. A left-arm spinner, Panesar plays Test and one-day cricket for England, and county cricket for Northamptonshire.
He is the first Sikh to represent a nation other than India in Test cricket. Panesar sports a trademark black patka while playing and in cricket training. He is a crowd favourite in England, and many fans have worn patkas and fake beards while watching Panesar play.
Despite his embryonic international career Panesar often receives loud cheers whenever he comes on to bat or bowl and when he fields the ball, the latter due to Panesar’s history of less than skilful fielding. When first selected for England he was widely said to be a particularly inept batsman and fielder, which may have contributed to this reception. However in more recent matches he has lived down these claims, and gained further popularity with his characteristic wicket-taking celebration, which consists of him gambolling down the pitch and high fiving his team-mates.

Despite his continuing ineptness in the field and with the bat, Panesar’s ability with the ball has enabled him to retain the role of England’s number-one spin-bowler in recent test series. He was selected as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in the 2007 edition.

Panesar has certain physical attributes that help with his spin bowling. Firstly he has an unusually large hand, measuring 10 inches and can also rotate his hand at his wrist through 360 degrees.

Panesar’s current bowling average, which hovers at 28.40, compares reasonably favourably with the more established finger-spinners such as Harbhajan Singh and Daniel Vettori. Panesar demonstrated his ability to take Test wickets in his first match in Nagpur, India, where his first Test wicket was that of the highly respected Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar. He also bowled batsmen Rahul Dravid and Mohammad Kaif. In the 2006 Test Series against Sri Lanka, Panesar claimed his first five-wicket haul for 78 runs, in the third Test at Trent Bridge. Monty went on to take 5 for 92 and 3 for 145 in the 3rd test match in Australia, in December 2006, despite England losing the match.

On 11 June 2007, Panesar became the first English spinner to take 10 wickets in a match since Phil Tufnell when he returned match figures of 10/187. This was achieved against the West Indies in the Third Test at Old Trafford. He took his 100th test wicket on 25 May 2008, against New Zealand, also at Old Trafford.

Panesar has shown signs of potential but is not yet a confident batsman, averaging about seven runs per innings. His best international innings was against Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge in 2006, when Panesar scored 26 off 28 balls by employing the sweep shot, including a swept six off Muttiah Muralitharan albeit in a losing cause. In the 2006 Perth, Ashes Test Match, Panesar scored an unbeaten 16 runs, putting on the biggest partnership of the innings with fellow bowler Steve Harmison.

Panesar’s fielding has been the subject of much discussion. Former England coach Duncan Fletcher had previously gone so far as to suggest that this could keep him out of the side if it does not improve. At the start of his Test career, this led to loud sardonic cheers from the crowd for completing even the simplest fielding tasks. Many commentators believe that his fielding has since improved somewhat; he held an impressive catch in England’s third Test match against Pakistan at Headingley in 2006.

Concerns over his fielding were shown in the third test match against India when a ball was hit towards him at long-off. He seemed to lose the ball in the background and the ball landed five yards away from him, when it should have been an easy catch. He did however make up for that error when he caught one a few minutes later at long-off. In the season of 2006 it was discovered that Panesar required a different type of contact lenses to the ones that he had been wearing previously, it is unknown whether these helped his fielding, despite his remarkable improvement

Panesar was left out of the England team for the first two tests of the series against Australia in 2006-07, which led to a petition being started by BBC Radio Five Live, calling out for his inclusion. Panesar was eventually selected to play in the third test at the WACA in Perth. He finished the first innings with figures of 5 for 92 off 24 overs, with Justin Langer, Andrew Symonds and Adam Gilchrist among his wickets, becoming the first English spin bowler to take five wickets in a test match at the WACA in Perth, his other two wickets being Shane Warne and Brett Lee. He also performed respectably with the bat, finishing on 16 not out as part of England’s best partnership in the innings. He remained in the team for the rest of the series, finishing with a record of 10 wickets at an average of 37.90 and collecting a total of 35 runs. He was the joint third highest wicket taker for England behind Matthew Hoggard and Andrew Flintoff, tying with Steve Harmison, having only played in three out of the five tests. During the Tests Panesar played, he quickly became a crowd favourite for both Australian and English fans, eliciting cheers from the crowd when fielding, bowling or batting.

After the Ashes series, Panesar was selected in the England squad for the Commonwealth Bank series with Australia and New Zealand. He made his ODI debut against Australia at Melbourne on 12th January 2007 and played in nine matches in the series. His attacking style, bowling economically and aggressively in equal parts, worked well, taking nine wickets and conceding 4.60 runs per over.

Following his impressive performances in the Ashes and Commonwealth Bank series Panesar was selected in England’s World Cup squad. He struggled to pick up wickets, only taking 7 at an average of 40.42, but bowled fairly economically conceding 4.42 runs an over. His best performance came on 11 April 2007 in a Super Eight’s group game against Bangladesh where he took 3/25 off his seven overs which included two maidens.

Panesar was in the team for all four Tests against the West Indies in May and June 2007. He got his first six wicket haul in Tests during the first innings of the first Test at Lord’s when he took 6/129. Five of his six victims were trapped LBW, all given out by the Nursery End umpire Asad Rauf. Panesar’s first Test ten wicket haul came in the third Test at Old Trafford, in which he took four first innings wickets, and six in the second innings, for match figures of 10/187. He became the first English spin bowler to take ten wickets in a match for ten years, Phil Tufnell in 1997 being the last English spinner to achieve this feat. He was awarded his first man of the match award for the performance. Panesar achieved his sixth 5-wicket haul in the final Test match, at Chester-le-Street. He took the wicket of the otherwise immovable Shivnarine Chanderpaul wicket to end the West Indies second innings. He finished the series with 23 wickets at an average of 18.69, an achievement which won him the man of the series award.

Panesar was not selected for the following Twenty20 matches, with both sides electing not to include full-time spinners in their sides. He played in two of the three ODI matches taking 1/57 overall at 4.07 runs an over.

Panesar played in all three tests against India in July and August. He played fairly well in the first and second Tests but struggled in the third Test. In the first Test at Lord’s he took 2/85, trapping Sachin Tendulkar LBW when he was on 16 runs as well as having a good appeal for a would have been match winning LBW against Sreesanth turned down. In the first innings of the second Test at Trent Bridge he took 4/101. In the third test at the Oval he struggled on a flat pitch, taking 2/217 in the match. He took 8 wickets in the series at an average of 50.37. He played in six of the seven ODI matches performing fairly unspectacularly. He took 6/268 runs overall at 4.78 runs an over.

In October 2007, Panesar was dropped for the first four matches of the five match ODI series, the England selectors opting to pick Graeme Swann due to his better batting ability. Panesar played in the fifth match, where he bowled tightly taking 1/31 at 3.10 runs an over. There was speculation that Swann would challenge Panesar for the Test place or at least play alongside him on the back of his strong performances in the first four ODIs. In the event, England opted to play Panesar ahead of Swann in the three match series in December. In the first match at Kandy Panesar took 6/178, but in the second Test at Columbo and the third Test at Galle he only managed figures of 2/151 and 0/76 respectively. He finished the series with 8 wickets at an average of 50.63.

In February 2008, England played two 20/20 matches against New Zealand where Panesar was omitted from the team in favour of the spinner Graeme Swann and England won both matches. Following this was the five match ODI series where Swann was again picked ahead of Panesar, although Swann was dropped after scoring only 7 and 1 with the bat in the first two matches yet he was not replaced by Panesar or any other spinner. Panesar was then selected for the three Test matches ending the series with 11 wickets at an average of 30.18, with England winning the series 2-1.

In May 2008, New Zealand arrived in England for a three Test series to be followed by a single 20/20 match and a five match ODI series. Once again Panesar was selected for the entire Test series and in the second match at Old Trafford he achieved his best single innings figures to date of 6/37, including the captain Daniel Vettori. He ended the series with 9 wickets at an average of 27.22. Despite recording his best ever innings figures in the second Test, Monty Panesar was once again omitted from the 20/20 and ODI teams in favour of the spinner Graeme Swann.

Personal information
Full name Mudhsuden Singh Panesar
Nickname Monty, Monster
Born 25 April 1982 (1982-04-25)
Luton, England
Height 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Batting style Left-handed
Bowling style Slow left arm orthodox
Role Bowler
International information
National side England
Test debut 1 March 2006: v India
ODI debut 12 January 2007: v Australia

Monty Panesar Against Srilanka

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