The dead-rubber expert, and Vettori's woes

Blow hot, blow cold
India may have drawn first blood in their Test series against Pakistan, but if recent history is any indication, then Pakistan need not get too despondent: in four of the five instances before this one, India lost the Test immediately after winning one in an overseas series. The trend started in Zimbabwe, when India won convincingly at Bulawayo, then were blitzed by Andy Blignaut at Harare. Then, on the Sri Lankan tour, India achieved a fourth-innings target of 264 at Kandy to notch a superb win and level the series 1-1, but lost the next one tamely in Colombo. The trend continued in the West Indies - victory in the second Test at Port-of-Spain followed by defeat in the next one at Barbados - and in Australia, when the Aussies fought back at Melbourne after being humbled at Adelaide. The only instance when the script wasn't quite as predictable was in England, when India followed their victory at Headingley with a high-scoring draw at The Oval. Can India manage a similar - or better - result at Lahore?

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Vettori's woes
He has often been touted as the best left-arm spinner in the world, but going strictly by his recent record, Daniel Vettori is perhaps only the eighth-best of his kind. Over the last three years - since January 1, 2001 - Vettori has managed just over two wickets per Test, at a rather unflattering average of almost 50. Among the bowlers who have done better are Mohammad Rafique, Ray Price, Sanath Jayasuriya and Ashley Giles.

A reason often offered in defence of Vettori is the kind of pitches he bowls on most of the time - the tracks in New Zealand are mostly seamer-friendly, and provide little assistance to spinners. While that may be the case, Vettori has hardly come to the party in more spinner-friendly conditions: his 38 wickets in the subcontinent have come at 40 apiece.

In his last 22 Tests, Vettori has taken only two five-fors, both of which came on the tour to Australia in 2001-02. Since then, 19 Tests have fetched him 35 wickets. The latest instance of underperformance came in the home series against South Africa. On pitches which were quite dry and favourable to spinners, Vettori came away with returns of four wickets in three Tests at an exorbitant average of 113.50. The contrast with Nicky Boje, the other left-arm spinner who played in the series, was especially stark in the final Test at Wellington - Boje took four wickets in each innings to return superb match figures of 8 for 134; Vettori went wicketless - though, to be fair to him, he was denied a couple of times by Asoka de Silva - conceding 129 runs from 44 largely harmless overs.

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The dead-rubber king
The Australians have often spoken about their goal of maintaining the intensity right through a Test series, even in dead matches. If they're looking for a role model, they need look no further than Justin Langer: in his last 12 dead-rubber Tests, Langer has scored an amazing seven hundreds - including two double-centuries - and averages nearly 75, 32 more than he does in "live" games. Incredibly, he has gone on to notch up a hundred every time he has passed fifty - his highest score apart from the centuries is 42. The latest demonstration of Langer's dead-rubber proficiency came in the recent series against Sri Lanka, when he scored 166 in the second innings in the third Test in Colombo.

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A wicket-fest, and a run-drought
Chris Martin's return to Test cricket, after a break of almost two years, turned out to be a fairytale: in two matches, he took 18 wickets, including 11 in a matchwinning effort at Auckland, at just 16.66. And, in the Wellington Test, he even made his first run in ten matches with a scintillating cover-drive for a single. That run broke a sequence of seven consecutive ducks - and two other innings of 0 not out. During that period, Martin took 41 wickets. In his 13-Test career so far, Martin has 52 wickets and 14 runs: in terms of wickets taken per run scored, he tops the list - and by quite a margin - among bowlers with at least 50 Test scalps.