A tale of the tail, and Pakistan dominate Sri Lanka again

Denesh Ramdin has been the one West Indian lower-order batsman who has shown the ability to stay at the crease and score runs © Getty Images

The two Tests which finished this week both ended in tame draws thanks largely to the weather, but also to some spirited lower-order batting: at Lord's Denesh Ramdin, Daren Powell and Jerome Taylor contributed 117 runs and kept West Indies' first-innings deficit down to 116, while Bangladesh's last four added 110 to take them past the follow-on target at Chittagong. Those contributions meant that both England and India had to abandon their hopes of winning starts to the series. This week's Numbers Game is one about tail-end batting, an aspect which, it's often said, reveals the true spirit and fighting qualities within a side.

That's one attribute New Zealand have never been accused of lacking, and given the batting abilities of Daniel Vettori and co., it's hardly surprising that their tail has been the most prolific. In all Tests since 2005, New Zealand's last four have averaged a healthy 26.46 runs per dismissal, with two hundreds - by Vettori and James Franklin - and seven fifties. The average is significantly better than what the other teams - including Australia - have managed.

Interestingly, the two teams contesting for The Wisden Trophy bring up the rear: both West Indies and England have averaged less than 13 per wicket during this period, which is lesser than the corresponding stat for Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. West Indies have made an encouraging start - in this aspect at least - under their new captain Ramnaresh Sarwan; the challenge will now be to sustain these levels.

The other side of the lower-order story is to look at the teams which have been at the receiving end of these tail-end performances, and the ones that have snuffed out these acts quickly. Again, both England and West Indies have been in the former category more often than not - which isn't entirely surprising considering their lack of bowling firepower of late - but it's far more surprising to see South Africa rank second from bottom. Franklin has scored a hundred against them, while Farveez Maharoof, Andy Blignaut, Chaminda Vaas and Courtney Browne are only some of the names who have contributed to the ten half-centuries against them.

Subtract the bowling averages (runs conceded per wicket) from the batting averages (runs scored per wicket), and you get a list of teams who have benefited the most from these lower-order exchanges. Thanks largely to their tail-end batting, New Zealand are on top of the tree, with Australia a distant second. West Indies and England are at the bottom with almost identical numbers.

Daniel Vettori heads the chart for the most successful tail-end batsman (though, strictly speaking, it's quite unfair to label Vettori a tailender) with an outstanding average of 48, while Pakistan's Kamran Akmal is the only other batsman who has averaged more than 40 when batting at a position lower than No.7. The presence of Denesh Ramdin, the West Indian wicketkeeper, in third place only shows up the rest of his lower-order mates even more - remove Ramdin's stats from the overall West Indian numbers from the first table, and the remaining tail-end batsmen have averaged a mere 10.28 since 2005.

With 64 wins and just 44 defeats in 112 ODIs since the 2003 World Cup, Sri Lanka have been a formidable one-day team over the last four years, but one team which has consistently bested them during this period is Pakistan. Their 2-1 series triumph in Abu Dhabi earlier this week has only continued their recent good run against the Lankans - in 14 games during this period, Pakistan have won nine and lost just four. Australia have a marginally better record, but Pakistan's stats against Sri Lanka are much better than any of the other teams has managed.

The presence of Muttiah Muralitharan hasn't altered the results much either: he has played in eight of those ODIs, and while his performance has been impeccable - 13 wickets at 19.82 - Sri Lanka have still lost five of those matches.