Wisden overview
On temperament and figures, Russel Arnold, a tall, angular left-hander, seems ideally suited to opening the batting, but his career has seen him work his way down the order, with decreasing success, rather than up. A patient accumulator of runs, he began his Test career going in first but despite solid scores then, and on his recall for the Asian Test Championship two years later, he lost out to Marvan Atapattu as Sanath Jayasuriya's partner, settling in at No. 3 instead. On the one occasion he was restored to open, he carried his bat in Harare. Short of runs by late 2000, he dropped into the lower middle-order in South Africa and continued to slide when England toured in early 2001. But when the teams met again, in 2002, a loss of form and confidence from Jayasuriya gave Arnold another chance at the top of the order - he did not disappoint, scoring 62 and 109 in a valiant rearguard at Old Trafford, and staked his claim for a permanent place at the top of the order. Arnold missed the 1999 World Cup but became a reliable member of a rebuilt one-day side not long after. Simon Wilde

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