Even if it hadn't been for his most obvious distinguishing feature, Merv Hughes would still have been one of the most iconic cricketers of the modern age. Purely as bowler he had a greater heart than pretty much any other player to have pulled on the baggy green (and that is saying something), he straddled the eras of failure & success & was key in the transition between the two & then of course there are his services to the noble art of, as Steve Waugh put it, mental disintegration
- or as we know it, Sledging. Although the majority of his more memorable"es were saved for English batsmen, his greatest is arguably his cry of "tickets please" to the departing Pakistan genius Javid Miandad following the batsman's assertion that Merv was a mere "fat bus conductor".