Wisden overview
A compact left-hander with a simple, busy, but well-organised game, great powers of concentration and maturity beyond his age, Simon Katich has emerged as Australia's next long-term prospect in the middle order. An outpouring of runs for Western Australia in 1998-99 won him a place as a project player on the following spring's tour of Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, but he was laid low by chicken pox and was unproductive the next summer as he tried in vain to shake off a virus. He has since regained his momentum with runs for Durham and WA, and won his first cap in the fourth Ashes Test at Headingley in 2001, when Steve Waugh withdrew through injury. Greg Baum

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