Tuesday, October 9, 2001 Amid all the outpourings of praise for Peter John Parnell Burge's lustrous, Ashes-winning 160 in the 1964 Headingley Test, one extraordinary fact has been overlooked. In rescuing Australia from 178 for 7 to 389 all out, Burge put on 105 for the eighth wicket with Neil James Napier Hawke and 89 for the ninth wicket with Arthur Theodore Wallace Grout. For Australian cricketers with three initials, it was the most dazzling 315 minutes in history.

Just as the last ten months have been the saddest. Burge's death last week came agonisingly soon after those of two other distinguished triple-deckers: Hawke himself, whose 20-year fight against illness ended on Christmas Day last year, and Gil (GRA) Langley, who passed away in May aged 81.

So what, you might say. Sri Lanka currently have two players with an unprecedented five initials: the left-arm spinner Ranjan (HMRKB) Herath and the lyrically named Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Joseph Chaminda Vaas. England have produced no fewer than 16 Test captains with three or four initials – from Ivo Francis Walter Bligh in 1882 to Robert George Dylan Willis in 1982.

Australia, by contrast, have had only three: Henry (HJH) Scott, Harry (GHS) Trott and Ian (IWG) Johnson. Of the 384 Australians to have donned the baggy green, only 39 have had three initials and only one – Hunter (HSTL) Hendry – has had four. What's more, the vast majority have been duds. Seven were one-Test wonders and four played only two Tests. Pick your four greatest Australian XIs of all time, Bradman-style, and chances are not a single treble-banger – with the possible exceptions of Charlie (CTB) "The Terror" Turner and Bert (WAS) Oldfield – would make the shortlist. Even The Don, surely, would not have been tempted to open the bowling with Ross (JRF) Duncan? Or the batting with Nat (NFD) Thomson? Or to give Algy (DRA) Gehrs or the under-rated Albert (AEV) Hartkopf a run in the middle order?

Burge, then, was one of the more gifted examples. But he was also typical in that, for all his natural talent, he was haunted by self-doubt. He was picked and dropped eight times before he finally won a regular Test spot, and his four Test centuries and average of 38 hardly tell of a strokeplayer blessed with rare power.

Consider, too, Jack (JHW) Fingleton, good enough to hit a century for NSW against Jardine's Bodyline attack of 1932-33 but restricted to 18 Tests over seven years. Ditto Andrew (AMJ) Hilditch, who also played only 18 Tests over seven years despite being responsible for one of the gutsiest modern-day innings: 113 v the 1984-85 West Indians. Then there are the likes of Bob (RAL) Massie, 16 wickets on debut and never heard of again, and Mike (MRJ) Veletta – awesome in domestic cricket, awful at Test level.

Some would say it is mere coincidence that the aforementioned duffers all had in common an extra initial. Poppycock. Just as the John Dysons and Nasser Hussains have struggled to live down the stigma of having only one initial, so it is that a third initial creates pressure, an expectation to be something out of the ordinary. Would Tim May eventually have announced himself as a Test-class offspinner had he not been held back by those cursed initials - TBA? Of course. Would Stuart MacGill still have had the Midas touch had he not been named after Australia's most devilishly turning wicket - SCG? Never.

Ever since Australia went all the way with GRJ (Matthews) – he of the earring, punk haircut and "cool, man" drawl – some distinctly oddball types have surfaced. MacGill reads books, practises yoga and prefers wine to beer. Veletta, whenever he faced fast bowlers or posed for team photographs, always looked as if his eyeballs were about to pop out of his skull. Matthew (MTG) Elliott is a dead ringer for Bill Lawry. And Australia have had no fewer than four wicketkeepers, said to be the weirdest bunch of all, with triple-decker monikers: Oldfield, Langley, Grout and Hammy (HSB) Love.

But with three initials increasingly viewed as a symbol of pretentiousness in modern, egalitarian Australian society, MacGill and Elliott could well prove the last of a dying breed. No other Australian with three-pronged initials entered the Test scene in the 1990s – the biggest drought in 80 years–- and, to date, not a single cricketer in the 21st century has joined the club.

When the eight-year-old Peter Burge dropped the use of Parnell (his mother's maiden name), one suspects his annoyance at repeatedly having to write down four names was the last thing on his mind. The man able to detect the subtlest ball-tampering from 100 yards away could spot a jinx a mile off.

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

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