Monty Panesar Profile

There is usually something to drag from the wreckage of any sporting disaster. England's in Perth was a study in curiosity, a seemingly unfathomable pearl of a man.

The pens hovered over notebooks. The tape recorders were stacked in front of him. Here, in the Kookaburra Room at the Waca at the end of his finest day, the media scrum gathered to hear from Monty Panesar, to drag from him a few words that might reveal some of his secret, a snippet that might lend depth to his deeds.

Two days later, he would be unmercifully mauled by a rampant, rejuvenated Adam Gilchrist - but this, on day one, was his moment. Surely he would grab it and love it and give us something to remember.

The pens did not move to the page. Questions came and went, batted away in a flurry of cliches. The TV lights bounced off his shiny face, but illumination came there none.

Hacks scratched their heads as they struggled to dissect the coached soundbites of a self-effacing young athlete belatedly pitched into the middle of a highly charged Ashes series. He droned on about 'the right areas', about 'trying hard for the team'. He would not be drawn on selections. He was kind to the opposition, too. He had a good word for everyone. He was maddeningly, brilliantly banal. 'Is this guy real?' an Australian journalist whispered.

Later that Thursday night, Panesar was barely visible in TV 'highlights' of the first day's play. Michael Hussey, whom he knows well from Northamptonshire, had ground out a remarkable unbeaten 74. He, too, is a novice in front of the camera, but he was lucid, quotable and vaguely interesting. In his finest moment, Panesar had been upstaged. As the puzzled Australian journalist said: 'What is it with this guy?'

But later, when I rolled through the tape of an interview I did with him in Northampton eight weeks before England left for Australia, it became clearer. Panesar's secret is not that baffling. As he put it to me time and again, to the point of tedium, he 'keeps it simple'. Nothing more. No 'doosra' to roll out. No chinamen. Thread it down to the 'right areas'. And the batsman might crack.

He treats reporters like batsmen. He disengages. He reduces his role in cricket to the bare bones: seven steps, arm arcing through the same space, ball after ball, curving it, dipping it, turning it, sometimes a lot, sometimes not. Then he does it again. And again. And again.

He moves an inch wider on the crease, pushes the arm just that bit harder, loosens the fingers ever so slightly, tightens them the next. All in tiny increments, but all delivered in the same, grooved way.

Panesar is only 24 and years away from maturity as a Test spinner, but he knows that the only way to survive at the highest level is to give nothing. Not a single loose ball if you can manage it. If you do that, you will be targeted because, he observes, these are world-class batsmen.

The dilemma for some commentators is they want Panesar to be the great mystery spinner, the saviour of English cricket, a package that sells the game to a new audience, a star of his community as well as his team. He has his own website, his own line of apparel. But all that consumes him is his bowling.

He is not averse to any of the expectations. But what many people do not understand is how he wants to get there.

The biggest influence on Panesar is the man to whom he has ludicrously been compared, Bishan Bedi. And what that Indian genius told him was the mantra he repeats until you want to tear your hair out: keep it simple.

In simplicity, though, is subtlety. And, as Bedi told Panesar, that is the secret to his art. Panesar had tried to bowl fast until he was about 15 and gave up when he could not generate pace, despite his strong, wiry frame. The mechanics were not right. There was too much going on.

'So then I changed to spin,' he said. 'I was quite lucky. My first coach told me, "Why don't you just model your action on Bishan Bedi? Copy him." He gave me this book with pictures of each shot of his action. I'd look at each shot and my coach would say, "Look, maybe you could do it this way." He moulded me. I followed that. That was my template.'

It set a pattern. Panesar invariably does what coaches tell him. It does not make him a sponge, but it does reflect a certain humility and willingness to learn. They are qualities not always shared by sports prodigies.

What he discovered early was a thirst for work and it has been fully tested here. 'It just became so part of my life, in the nets, as I learnt about cricket, it was more like fun than practising,' he said. 'I'd bowl for hours. At times, the coaches would say quality is better than quantity, don't just bowl for the sake of it. But I just enjoy it. I remember bowling to Matthew Hayden and Mike Hussey in the nets at Northants for hours. I just enjoyed it.'

When they were reacquainted in the heat of the Ashes, Panesar gave as good as he got. It was tough, but all that bowling served him well.

Some think that he listens too much, especially to England coach Duncan Fletcher, who not long ago described him as 'the best finger spinner in the world' yet had to be convinced that he was worth risking here only when the cause looked hopeless. Fletcher thought him unreliable away from his main art, with some justification.

Until Friday. When Panesar went in to bat last and started hauling Shane Warne and Brett Lee to all parts - not slogging, but cultured, considered shot-making - to remain unbeaten on 16, he shocked everybody but himself.

When we spoke, he was keen to remind me that he had scored a century as a schoolboy. He hinted, even then, that he would like to move up the order. Mike Brearley spotted an uncomplicated style in his batting, too, and wondered in these pages why there was so much negativity generated about Panesar's batting.

'You never know,' Panesar said. 'I could get that chance. There could be a situation where they say to me, "Yeah, go on, this is an opportunity for you to see how you deal with it." I'd like that.'

Yesterday, Fletcher said that, on the back of Panesar's sound display, maybe he was ready for a move up the order. And what will the quiet man of cricket have to say when he is asked to discuss his first Test fifty? Probably not much. 'Keep it simple, that's what it's all about.'