Arguably, the only sportsmen who are duller than tennis players are cricketers. This is backed up by their appalling lack of imagination when it comes to nicknaming their fellow players. Wit and humour are jettisoned in favour of simply putting a "y" or an "sy" on to an existing surname. Thus, Andrew Strauss is known as "Straussy", Dominic Cork as "Corky" and Robert Key as "Keysy" (when "Dong" would have been far better). This is a situation which would have Australian legend Steve "Tugger" Waugh and his brother Mark (aka Portuguese Manor) squirming in their retirement homes. In order to address this imbalance I've decided to apportion some fresh nicknames to some of the cricketers currently playing in the ICC World Championship.

Here goes:

Salman "Itchy" Butt (Pakistan)

Shoaib "Maxfff" Akhtar (Pakistan)

Nathan "Nuke" Astle (New Zealand)

Michael "Show Us Yer" Papps (New Zealand)

Mervyn "Bob" Dillon (West Indies)

Dwayne "Zero 2" Bravo (West Indies)

Steve "Handles" Massiah (U.S.A.)

Chaminda "Ming" Vaas (Sri Lanka)

Anil "Sex" Kumble (India)

Manjural Islam "Banana" Rana (Bangladesh)

Tareq "Everything" Aziz (Bangladesh)

Hoss.