Watching Amir Khan stand nose to nose (chest to nose would be more accurate) with Gairy St Clair, who challenges for his Commonwealth lightweight title tomorrow at ExCeL, East London, you would be forgiven for thinking that he could be in for an easy night. Khan at 5ft 10in towers over the 5ft 4in Australian, but his lack of height belies his abilities.

“He has the hardest chin in world boxing,” Johnny Lewis, who trains St Clair, said. “But you have to be very good to find it because he’s a very clever boxer.” The lack of marks on the face of St Clair, a former IBF super-featherweight champion, who is 33 tomorrow, testify to that.

Lewis first brought St Clair to Australia from Guyana eight years ago, as a sparring partner for Kostya Tszyu, and then signed him to a contract after he held his own with the former world light-welterweight champion.

In Guyana, he had fallen in love with the sport watching it on television. “My Uncle Godfrey had the only TV in the village,” he said. “I saw my first fight on it as a kid — Don Curry. Straight after that I went into my granny’s garden and started shadow boxing with the tallest flowers in the yard. Of course, the good thing about flowers is they don’t hit you back.”

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