Curves are back

As readers will know from his effortlessly elegant attire, Fantasy Bob is a keen student of the fashion pages in the daily press.  He commends in particular the column by Hadley Freeman in the Monday Guardian who generally provides soundly ironic guidance on all those so difficult to answer questions about what you should wear with what.  FB is currently seeking her advice as to whether it is acceptable to wear Gray Nicholls pads with Kookaburra gloves.

But in his trek through the fashion and style pages, FB has noticed several recent articles referring to actress Christina Hendricks, whose attributes seem to be that .....er ..........she has......er attributes that are generally larger than those of the stick insects that are normally found on the pages of Vogue.  The fuller figure is back, FB has been told.

FB wonders whether the cricketing world will also follow this trend.  The modern cricketer is the product of the gym and endless conditioning programmes.  Like FB himself, he is lithe, muscular and sleek;  ready for that quick single and to chase every ball to the boundary.  But FB remembers a time not so long ago that this astonishing athleticism was less than pervasive.  Nostalgia brings him to raise a cheer for the fuller figured cricketer.

The great Colin Cowdrey could only be described as roly-poly.  Colin Milburn looked like he was a hard man to prize away from the tea table.  Even relatively recently, the eating exploits of Mike Gatting are the stuff of legend and Inzaman ul-Haq, a batter of the highest quality, had a nobly rotund stature that may have contributed to his being the most reluctant runner between the wickets in Test history. 

FB is too polite to suggest that there are any fuller figured cricketers on the present Carlton playing staff.   But he hopes that his readers may be able to add to his initial list of fuller figured cricketers from whatever cricketing arena.