Non-regular bowlers in ODIs, and Donald's feat

Perhaps numbers never do reveal the full story, but they tell a large part of it. Every Friday, The Numbers Game will take a look at statistics from the present and the past, busting myths and revealing hidden truths:

Part-timers on a full-time job
Three specialist bowlers, four, or even five? It's a question which has probably been debated by the think-tanks of most one-day sides. One school of thought says that with everything loaded in favour of the batsmen - the pitches are flat, outfields fast and often made smaller by bringing in the boundary lines, and the bowlers have various restrictions imposed on them - it makes sense to pack the side with batsmen and have part-timers bowl even as many as 20 overs: after all, with the playing field so skewed, part-timers aren't likely to go for much more than specialist bowlers, while their superior ability with the bat would add muscle to the line-up.

The opposing school of thought suggests that the tougher the conditions for bowlers, the more is the need to play specialists to plug the runs - but that's a view which is slowly going out of fashion: in a game where a bowler's potent weapons are taken away from him, how much difference can he make? West Indies won the Champions Trophy with a side that usually had three specialist bowlers, with Chris Gayle and the two Hindses, Wavell and Ryan, filling in for the rest of the overs. Pakistan are perhaps the only side which regularly has five players who are good enough to be termed specialist bowlers, but that's only because three of them are genuine allrounders - it would be a travesty to call any of Shoaib Malik, Abdul Razzaq or Shahid Afridi a part-timer with the ball.

The table below shows just how the stopgap bowlers have fared for all teams since the 2003 World Cup. The criterion to distinguish between a regular bowler and a part-timer was simple - anyone who'd averaged six or more overs per ODI was classified as a specialist bowler.

The results are interesting: as usual, the Australians lead the way, and in fact are one of only two teams where the part-timers have actually done better than the regulars. Darren Lehmann's stats are illustrative of the Australians' uncanny knack of performing well above their potential - his 14 wickets have come at less than 19 per wicket, and at a very acceptable economy rate of 4.76. England's motley crew of Paul Collingwood, Michael Vaughan, Michael Trescothick and six others have struggled on the wicket-taking front, averaging 19 more per wicket than the regulars, but they have been splendid in choking the runs, conceding only 2.83 per over.

India's dibby-dobblers - Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and eight others - haven't had spectacular success, but the 5.41 runs they concede per over is only 0.48 more than the regulars, and considering the fact that they bowl just over 10 overs per match on an average, that translates into five extra runs a game. Surely that isn't too much, since it allows India the luxury of an extra batsman. Sri Lanka's part-timers have struggled too, but they only bowl 4.2 overs a match (Sanath Jayasuriya counts as a regular bowler for the purpose of this analysis), hence it doesn't translate into significant damage for the team.

Donald breaks a jinx
Allan Donald, who announced his retirement from all forms of cricket earlier this week, not only showed South Africa the way on their return from exile, he also proved that early success in one-day internationals isn't necessarily a bad thing. Before him, only two bowlers - Uvais Karnain of Sri Lanka and Australia's Tony Dodemaide - had taken a five-for on ODI debut, and neither lasted more than 25 matches. Since Donald, who took 5 for 29 in his first game against India, three more have joined that list, but it looks highly unlikely that any of them will have half the success that Donald has.

S Rajesh is assistant editor of Cricinfo.