"Let's have a warm hand..."

A couple of weeks ago I was in Waterstone's, inevitably browsing the cricket section of their selection of sports books, when my eyes alighted on a table of gifts and I spotted something that every spinner should have: hand warmers. They're very clever thingies. From having studied chemistry I'm sure it's some sort of reversible reaction that's highly exothermic one way and endothermic the other, with the upshot that when you press a little clicker inside the pouches, the gel quickly crystallises and heats up. Once they've given their heat off, you pop them in a pan of boiling water for five minutes, the crystals dissolve back into a gel and once they've cooled down they're ready to go again.

I first became aware of them when Steve Smith used them in the Australia 'A' game against England at Hobart (they were hidden in his pockets but they showed up on HotSpot). Next to a wet ball, I can't think of anything more debilitating for a spinner than cold fingers, so they should be a nice little gadget to keep in my kitbag for those "multi-jumper" match-days.