The Waugh that raged during crises

Waugh to the rescue
Sachin Tendulkar steals a march over him in terms of technical perfection and allround strokeplay, Brian Lara's genius is far more exhilarating to watch, but ask anyone to name a batsman most likely to bail his team out of trouble, and chances are the name will be Steve Waugh. As the table below shows, Waugh saved his best for times when his side was in trouble: of his 32 centuries, nine came in back-to-the-wall situations when Australia had lost early wickets. Significantly, Australia went on to win five out of those eight matches. (Two of those nine hundreds came in the same match, against England at Manchester in 1997.)

Nine instances when Waugh played saviour
Versus	Venue	Score	Entered at	Team innings	Winner
West Indies	Jamaica 1994-95	200	73 for 3	1st	Australia
England	Manchester, 1997	108	42 for 3	1st	Australia
England	Manchester, 1997	116	39 for 3	2nd	Australia
Pakistan	Rawalpindi, 1998-99	157	28 for 3	1st	Australia
West Indies	Jamaica, 1998-99	100	46 for 3	1st	West Indies
West Indies	Barbados, 1998-99	199	36 for 3	1st	West Indies
India	Adelaide, 1999-00	150	45 for 3	1st	Australia
New Zealand	Wellington, 1999-00	151*	51 for 4	1st	Australia
England	Sydney, 2002-03	102	56 for 3	1st	England

Eight out of these nine were first-innings efforts, though. For all of Waugh's ability to turn it on at the crunch, his second-innings stats are surprisingly ordinary - just two hundreds and an average of less than 31.

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Better than the Don
And here's one stat where Waugh outperforms even Don Bradman: in the 32 innings in which Waugh has scored a hundred, he averages more than 255, which is the highest among batsmen with at least 20 centuries. Bradman is in fourth place while Sachin Tendulkar just makes it to the top eight. Waugh's staggering average is, admittedly, a result of a disproportionately high number of not-outs: 15 out of his 32 centuries have been unbeaten ones. Disregard those, and his average comes down to a more earthy 135.

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The dead-rubber master
Waugh's incredible record as captain has much to do with the fact that he was handed a champion side by Mark Taylor, but Waugh has undoubtedly taken the team to an even higher level. He has instilled in them the hard-nosed and ruthless approach that characterises his own game. Nowhere is this new steel more apparent than in Australia's tendency to show no mercy even when their opponent has been well and truly beaten. During Taylor's days, Australia recorded some historic wins, but would tend to slip up once the main task at hand - winning the series - was completed. As the table below shows, under Waugh the Australians have significantly improved their record in dead rubbers: despite recent defeats against England and West Indies, their win-loss record in dead Tests is an impressive 11-3.

Overall as captain	Tests	Won	Lost	Win-loss ratio
Taylor	50	26	13	2:1
Waugh	53	40	8	5:1

In dead rubbers	Tests	Won	Lost	Win-loss ratio
Taylor	6	1	4	0.25:1
Waugh	14	11	3	3.67:1

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The motivator
A captain is recognised not only by the ability to lift his own game, but also by the ability to inspire his team-mates to excel. Since Waugh had a team which was largely unchanged from the players whom Taylor led, it becomes possible to compare how the players performed under those two captains. Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting have done considerably better under Waugh, but it's interesting to note that Mark Waugh was at his best when playing under Taylor.

Among the bowlers, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne have played plenty of matches under both captains, and their performances have remained more or less constant. With players as accomplished as them, though, chances are that they would have performed just as well even in a team without a captain.

How players performed under ...
	Taylor			Waugh
	Tests	Runs	Ave	Tests	Runs	Ave
Hayden	6	241	24.10	37	3654	67.67
Langer	11	747	41.50	50	3695	48.62
Ponting	22	1209	36.64	47	3587	59.78
Slater	30	2358	44.49	27	1676	38.98
M Waugh	50	3663	45.79	40	2025	36.16

	Tests	Wkts	Ave	Tests	Wkts	Ave
McGrath	40	190	22.38	48	217	20.07
Warne	42	199	25.56	38	175	26.58
Gillespie	10	39	21.13	34	133	24.77
Fleming	10	37	27.22	10	38	24.61

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The final target
With an average of 51.25 from 164 Tests and only four more matches to play at most, Waugh has virtually ensured that he ends his career with a 50-plus average. If he plays four more innings in the four Tests, Waugh will end up with an average of 50.28 even if he doesn't add a run to his current tally; if he bats six times, he needs to add just 40, while in eight the corresponding figure is 140. Given India's feeble bowling attack, a realistic challenge is Allan Border's record of 11174 Test runs: Waugh needs 514 more to become Test cricket's highest run-getter. Now that would be a fitting finale to a glittering career.