Tuesday, April 9, 2002 It's only April but already 2002 is shaping up as a deliciously quotable year in Australian cricket. When Jimmy Maher hit 95 in his comeback knock a couple of weeks ago he commented, charmingly, that his mum and dad were "as happy as fat spiders". A month or so earlier we were treated to a classic commentary encounter on Channel 9, when Mark Taylor quizzed Bill Lawry about the welfare of a bird that had been hit by the ball and turned into seagull stew. "She's gone, Tubby," was all The Phantom, a noted pigeon-fancier, could choke out.

But best of all, by my reckoning, was offspinner-turned-radio pundit Gavin Robertson's opening question to Michael Bevan after Graeme Rummans, the New South Wales batsman, failed a drugs test. "Bevo? It's Robbo. How's the situation with Rummo affecting the team?"

The quote is significant not simply because it makes you laugh so hard that your rib-guard falls off, but because of the wider social implications: ie. that Australian cricketers, traditionally funny buggers who enjoy nothing more than a spot of mickey-taking at each other's expense, have forgotten the value of a humorous, cutting nickname.

Consider, for example, the Australian XI which last took the field in a Test: Lang, Haydos, Punter, Junior, Tugga, Marto, Gilly, Warnie, Bing, Dizzy, Pigeon. Glenn "Pigeon" McGrath is a deft reference to his spindly bird-like legs, while Jason "Dizzy" Gillespie at least suggests that a couple of the blokes have skimmed the occasional rock-and-roll encyclopedia. But the only really sparky nickname to be seen is Steve "Tugga" Waugh - "as in tug-of-war, mate, nothin' else" - a sorry state of affairs in the country that gave birth to Peter "Sounda" Sleep, Wayne "Dunny" Clark and Leslie O'Brien "Chuck" Fleetwood-Smith.

In truth, the old-fashioned art of cricketers bestowing hilariously funny or hilariously awful nicknames on each other has been in freefall for years. The decline was accentuated by the departure of Merv Hughes, who was known variously as "Sumo" (because of his girth), "Fruit-Fly" (Australia's biggest pest) and "Heapa" (as in heap-a-shit). Never before, however, has Australia's moniker malaise plummeted to such depths.

The rot set in around the mid-1980s when Allan Border's nickname went from the inspired ("Pugsley", as in the The Addams Family character) to the inoffensive ("Captain Grumpy") to the insipid ("AB"). Captain Grumpy stuck during the 1985-86 New Zealand tour when Border threatened to resign after his side's humiliating defeat to Jeremy Coney's Kiwis.

Yet Australia had looked in the pinkest of health, if nicknames are any index of team harmony, only a couple of months earlier. It is hard to believe they have ever fielded a more nomenclaturally pleasing XI than that which took the field in the third Test against India at the SCG: David "Babs" Boon, Geoff "Swampy" Marsh, Allan "Pugsley" Border, Greg "Fat Cat" Ritchie, Wayne "Flipper" Phillips, Greg "Mo" Matthews, Steve "Tugga" Waugh, Ray "Spotty" Bright, Dave "Lizard" Gilbert, Bruce "Chook" Reid and Bob "Dutchy" Holland.

Eight years earlier, against the same opponents, captain Simpson was the only obvious dud on a team sheet that read: John "Dice" Dyson, Gary "Jaffa" Cosier, David "Rags" Ogilvie, Craig "Bilko" Serjeant, Bobby "Simmo" Simpson, Peter "Rats" Toohey, Tony "Rocket" Mann, Steve "Stumper" Rixon, Wayne "Dunny" Clark, Jeff "Two-Up" Thomson, Sam "Sammy-Rat" Gannon and Kim "Clag" Hughes (12th man).

Those 1977-78 and 1985-86 Australian sides had one crucial characteristic in common: they were crap, a point unlikely to have been lost on the current coach John "Buck" Buchanan. Perhaps Buck fears a witty nickname to be psychologically damaging? Perhaps he sees it as a distracting frippery? Or perhaps the players, worried about making themselves unpalatable to image-obsessed sponsors, have themselves spearheaded the revolution towards mundanity over originality?

Whatever the case, it has worked wonders on the field. Off the field it is a different story, a point made recently by the editor of the Australian Wisden Almanack, Warwick Franks, when he commented: "While Australian cricket followers respected the skill and success of the team, there was not a great deal of affectionate warmth in their response."

It is somehow easier to warm to batsmen like John "Pythagoras" Rutherford (he was a maths teacher) or Rick "Bish" McCosker (his middle name was Bede) than to Lang or Haydos. When Australia picked a captain who loved a flutter back in the 1920s they called him "Horseshoe"; 80 years on and Ricky Ponting, Herbie Collins's heir apparent, is plain old "Punter".

And so it goes on. Down the ages, the princes of Australia's cricketing past have regularly inherited titles from their equals in the animal kingdom: Bill "Tiger" O'Reilly, Hunter "Stork" Hendry, Harry "Bull" Alexander, Alan "Froggy" Thomson, Ian "Mad Dog" Callen. Others have been named after evil spectres or comic-book heroes: Fred "The Demon" Spofforth, Charlie "The Terror" Turner, Ernie "Jonah" Jones, Neil "Ghoul" Hawke, Graham "Garth" McKenzie.

The nicknames of a select few have derived from obscure acronyms. Dennis Lillee was known as "Fot" because his old WA captain Tony Lock once geed him up by calling him an "f---ing old tart". The 1970s mystery spinner John Gleeson was dubbed "Cho" - "Cricket Hours Only" – because of the way he vanished at the end of a day's play. Other memorable nicknames have been inspired by a player's physical characteristics, notably Warwick "The Big Ship" Armstrong, Frank "Tarzan" Misson, Max "Tanglefoot" Walker and Bruce "Stumpy" Laird.

The poverty of imagination that afflicts contemporary nicknames is perhaps best summed up in two categories: wicketkeepers and spinners. Australia's last two keepers, Gilly and Heals, rate as fairly pathetic additions to a genre that has produced such gems as Bert "Cracker" Oldfield, Don "Deafy" Tallon, Wally "The Griz" Grout, Ray "Slug" Jordon and Rod "Bacchus" Marsh (as in the small Victorian town, sadly, not the Greek god of wine).

The drought is even more pronounced when it comes to spin. Australia's master leggies of today go by the names of "Magilla" and "Warnie"; true, Warne is sometimes known as "Hollywood", but that is an artificial creation which has never really caught on. Yet, in the past, spin bowlers have proved astoundingly fertile fodder. Apart from "Chuck", "Tiger", "Sounda" and "Dutchy", Australia has boasted HV "Ranji" Hordern, Clarrie "Scarlet" Grimmett, Bert "Dainty" Ironmonger, Johnny "Wok" Watkins, Kerry "Skull" O'Keeffe, Ashley "Rowdy" Mallett, Jim "Glad" Higgs, Graeme "Agatha" Beard, Bruce "Roo" Yardley … to name but a few.

Ian Johnson, the first spinner to captain Australia in a Test, was for a time dubbed "Myxamatosis" because he always seemed to bring himself on when the rabbits were in. Ray Bright, the first spinner to lead Australia in a one-day international, actually had two nicknames: "Spotty" and "Candles".

There isn't much we miss about Ray Bright bowling for Australia, but we do miss that.

Chris Ryan is a former managing editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly and a former Darwin correspondent of the Melbourne Age.

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