He was nicknamed "long" for his 6 foot 7 inch height, but Tom Moody bowled gentle medium pace, with a short run up and an action that made him a natural swinger of the ball. Add to that his ability to bat in the lower middle order, and Moody became an automatic choice as an all-rounder in the shorter format of the game. Moody started well in Test cricket too - with a half century on debut (against New Zealand at Perth) and a century in his very next game (against Sri Lanka in Brisbane), but it came to an abrupt end after he was sacrificed as an opener in Sri Lanka in 1992.

But Moody remained in the reckoning for the ODI versions, and made a comeback to the side. His all round ability played an important part in Australia's succesful World Cup camaign at England in 1999, and Moody, along with Steve Waugh, became the first two Australians to be part of 2 World Cup winning squads.

Moody's best performances came in first class cricket, where he played for Western Australia, and also Warwickshire and Worcestershire in the English county. He has hit more than 20,000 first class runs, and his 1387 List A runs for Worcestershire in 1991 is a record for the county. A persistent back injury forced Moody to retire in 2000-01, and he took to coaching and also became an analyst in the media. In 2005, he was in contention to become India’s coach but lost out to Greg Chappell. Moody became Sri Lanka’s coach a few months later, and took them to the final of the 2007 World Cup. He resigned the job soon after and returned to Western Australia. He was also the coach of the Kings XI Punjab franchise in the Indian Premier League before being named coach of the Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2013.

Moody established himself as a very good commentator and is almost a regular with Channel Nine in Australia and also travels across the globe to voice his opinions for some major tournaments.

By Karthik Lakshmanan