Monty magic

Over the last few years, England's pace attack has been in fairly solid hands, but the lack of slow-bowling options has sometimes made the attack one-dimensional. That, it seems, is a thing of the past with the emergence of Monty Panesar, who led the bowling quite superbly at Old Trafford, becoming the first English spinner in ten years to take a ten-wicket haul in a Test.

Phil Edmonds, Phil Tufnell and Ashley Giles have all had their moments, but since the retirement of Derek Underwood, England have struggled to find a left-arm spinner who can consistently be a threat, and can offer both a run-saving and a wicket-taking option for the captain. Panesar has the control and the variety to do both jobs.

The table below indicates how bare England's left-arm-spin-bowling cupboard has been over the last 50 years and more. Panesar's rich haul at Old Trafford brought his average down to less than 30 - the benchmark that separates the really great spinners from the merely good ones - for the first time in his fledgling Test career, but before him Underwood and Tony Lock were the only ones who took their wickets at less than 30 apiece.

The other two aspects that stand out are Panesar's strike rate, and his tendency to take his wickets in bunches. At a rate of a wicket every 61.5 balls, Panesar's striking ability is the best among all the bowlers in the table below. Moreover, Panesar has taken five wickets in an innings on five occasions already in 16 Tests, as many times as Giles managed in 54 matches and Tufnell in 42.

The only bowler in this list whose rate of taking five-fors comes close to Panesar's is Nick Cook, who managed it four times in his cameo international career of 15 Tests. In fact, the start to his career was far more spectacular than Panesar's - after four Tests Cook had a phenomenal tally of 32 wickets at an average of 17.31. Sadly, in his next 11 Tests, he only managed 20 more scalps.

Best left-arm spinners for England since 1950*

Bowler	Tests	Wickets	Average	Strike rate	5WI/ 10WM
Derek Underwood	86	297	25.83	73.6	17/ 6
Tony Lock	49	174	25.58	75.5	9/ 3
Ashley Giles	54	143	40.60	85.1	5/ 0
Phil Edmonds	51	125	34.18	96.2	2/ 0
Phil Tufnell	42	121	37.68	93.2	5/ 2
Monty Panesar	16	59	29.93	61.5	5/ 1
Nick Cook	15	52	32.48	80.2	4/ 1

(*Only includes left-arm spinners who made their Test debut after 1950)

Another important feature of Panesar's bowling is his ability to ask probing questions of both right-handed and left-handed batsmen. Usually left-handed batsmen find it much easier to tackle a ball which is turning into them (check out Daniel Vettori's stats against right and left-handers), but Panesar has so far managed a better average against left-handers. In the current series, Devon Smith has had an especially tough time reading him, being dismissed three times in 49 balls scoring just 22 runs, for a dismal average of 7.33. (Shivnarine Chanderpaul has read him much better, scoring 84 runs from 176 balls for just one dismissal.)

Through the second half of the summer, though, Panesar will have a much tougher job on his hands to maintain those numbers against the lefties when he bowls at the Indians, especially Sourav Ganguly.

Vettori, on the other hand, has struggled for penetration against left-handers: in Tests since June 2001 (which is when Cricinfo began recording ball-by-ball data for all international matches), he has conceded more than 47 runs per wicket against left-handed batsmen, at a strike rate which is much worse than Panesar's.

It's still perhaps too early to say if Panesar can sustain this excellence and etch his name among the all-time great spinners, but a look at how much some of the other big names had achieved at a similar stage in their careers is quite revealing. Anil Kumble leads the list quite comfortably, but Panesar's stats stand up to the scrutiny against most of the others.

One former left-arm spinner - and a great one at that - who had been raving about Panesar even before he made his mark internationally was Bishan Bedi, and it's interesting to compare the two turbaned tweakers after 16 Tests: Bedi had taken 53 wickets - six fewer than Panesar - at an average of 29.07, marginally better than Panesar's 29.93. The challenge for him is to maintain - or improve upon - these numbers over an extended period of time. Given his attitude and his immense talent, that looks eminently achievable.