HE is a 'smooth operator' who kills 'em softly, with clean, deft placements rather than booming blows, a match-winner who doesn't appear to be one.
A deceptively effective cricketer with simple methods, easily one of the finest percentage players around. Clever and durable, he is Gary Kirsten. Talk about the 'Big Names' among contemporary batsmen, and it is so easy to overlook this lightly built opener, so easy to put flamboyancy over consistency.
After all, he doesn't send the ball disappearing to the far corners of the ground in a hurry, cannot quite get the crowd roaring in a frenzy.
Yet, look at the South African's fine record in both forms of the game, and his value to the side immediately becomes evident. Kirsten blunts the attack, lays the platform, and ends up making a sizable contribution himself. He knows his strengths and weaknesses and plays according to them. In fact, the southpaw takes us to the very essence of cricket - that this is an uncomplicated game.
Not getting intimidated by reputations, blocking the good deliveries and putting away the loose ones, Kirsten, the senior citizen of the side at 34, does all this bloody well. So well, that he now has 5722 runs from 75 Tests (ave. 42.83, 13 hundreds) and 5926 from 158 ODIs (ave. 41.44, sr. 71.68, 11 centuries) - figures that reflect his importance to the Proteas at the top of the order.
Now he stands tall as the first South African to cross the 5000-run barrier in Tests. Wonderful reward for a committed foot-soldier, who has seldom deviated from the straight path.
Kirsten also takes us back to another eternal cricketing truth. It is not so much the method, as the manner in which the job is executed that matters.
Kirsten is certainly not as attractive as his dashing half-brother Peter, a brilliant stroke-maker, was, but this does not diminish his value to the side.
At the end of the day, he would have made his runs at a fair clip, pushing and nudging the ball into the open spaces for his ones and twos - he is a splendid runner between the wickets - apart from dismissing the ball ruthlessly square off the wicket on either side when the opportunity presents itself.
Indeed, the punch through point is the trademark Kirsten stroke - the left-hander is a sound back-foot player - and he has picked a fair number of runs in the arc between square-leg and mid-wicket as well.
He seldom gets ruffled which suggests he can handle adversity competently. And he loves to occupy the crease, grind the bowling, and look beyond the three-figure mark - this again has only helped his team's cause. In other words, Kirsten possesses the right temperament for an opener. He has a fairly compact technique too if one were to overlook a slight shuffle across, that has landed him in trouble on occasions.
Having learnt his cricket on the demanding South African pitches, with its pronounced seam movement and bounce, Kirsten handles the speed merchants competently, often using the pace of the ball intelligently to gather his runs.
He's an adequate player of spin, and it is not uncommon to watch the Cape Town batsman milk the bowling during the middle overs of an ODI, working the ball around diligently. Kirsten walks in with a definite game-plan and sticks to it. It goes without saying that the openers enjoy a huge advantage when it comes to limited overs cricket - with full 50 overs to bat they do have a wonderful chance to pace the innings.
Yet, the runs have to be made, and someone like Kirsten has accomplished the task with a correct approach, seldom resorting to crude means. The logic being 'bat longer and the runs would come.'
Under former coach, the shrewd Bob Woolmer, the South Africans started the 'run a ball' concept, and though the theory has not always worked, this has ensured that the Proteas, forever on the look-out for runs, seldom present dead, defensive blades.
Kirsten has a vital role to play in the scheme of things. Occupy the crease, rotate the strike, and set the stage for the likes of Lance Klusener to create mayhem towards the end. Along the way he formed a formidable opening combination with the strokeful Andrew Hudson, the left-right pair coming off splendidly for the South Africans.
And now, the enduring Gary complements the talented Herschelle Gibbs wonderfully well too, the latter invariably going after the bowling. The Indians discovered this the hard way in the Johannesburg ODI.
Given the compactness of his technique, and crisp use of his feet, it's not surprising that Kirsten has made runs in almost all conditions - the swing in the Old Blighty, the 'turners' of the sub-continent, the variable surfaces of the Caribbean and the bouncy Australian pitches. Since the mid-90s, Kirsten and Daryll Cullinan have been the mainstays in the South African batting, and it was often a neck and neck race between the two as they, in their contrasting styles, gathered crucial runs for South Africa.
Now, of course, the formidable Jacques Kallis is around too adding considerable weight to the line-up. Yet, Kirsten has been the 'constant' factor.
How would Kirsten compare with the leading current openers? He surely is not as explosive as a Sanath Jayasuriya or a Michael Slater, is not quite as graceful as Marvan Atapattu, nor can he wade into an attack like Saeed Anwar, yet he has a place in this elite company. Reason - he can construct an innings better than most.
Ditto in one-day cricket where Master Batsman Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Mark Waugh and Adam Gilchrist are all bigger names than Kirsten, still the South African has his own supporters. Not surprisingly, another left-hander, Allan Border is his hero. Kirsten too puts a price on his wicket, loves the scent of a battle, and displays a similar kind of doggedness.
Like Border, he too has the knack of cobbling together a useful knock during times when he's not exactly middling the ball, even if he too can drag the delivery back to his stumps on occasions! This is no attempt at comparing the two, and Border does belong to a rather special category as a batsman, but what needs to be emphasised here is that Kirsten has picked the right things from his idol (well, almost!).
A friendly, likable man with a ready smile, Kirsten has the reputation of being an unassuming, no-nonsense cricketer, who has done much to redeem South Africa's image as a cricketing superpower, following the dark days of the match-fixing scandal.
And on the field of play, he provides stability without quite compromising on the pace of run-gathering - a tough act really. But then, this man's a 'smooth operator'!
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