McKenzie...McKenzie who?

I asked, "Remember Neil McKenzie?"

"Neil who?", my friend asked back.

Yeah, one is sure, my friend is not the only one to have forgotten this cricketer. Neil 'Superstitious' McKenzie last played a Test in 2004, before being dumped into wilderness. But what stood out more than his batting was his eccentric behaviour before taking strike, every ball.



If you have seen Chanderpaul or Jayasuriya, or even Dhoni, and thought that they overdid their eccentricities, you would have to watch this man bat. One would have thought that every step he took was calculating, methodical and laced with the thought of what next?

Other examples of his strange mannerisms took the cake though. He never touched the batting crease when the ball was dead, thus he would either bat outside the crease, or have one foot on either side of the line. But would never touch it. A cool second and a half would be spent in adjusting where he stood, so as to ensure that the crease remains beyond the realms of his touch. There are stories of McKenzie packing and repacking his bag over and over again, till he has ensured that the place is speckless.

Look at Cricinfo's Andrew Miller's description of the man:

"Neil McKenzie is a batsman whose superstitions border on the neurotic - he routinely tapes his bat to the ceiling before an innings, and has to make sure that all the toilet seats are down before goes out to the middle. Such habits are good preparation for days like these, when survival is largely decided by the whims of fate."

Sometimes one wondered whether he overdid it.

Incidentally, McKenzie has scored a 182 in SA-A's first inning against the touring Kiwi side.