McGrath-Warne, Tendulkar-Dravid & other prolific pairs

The 1001 wickets that Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne scalped in 104 Tests is a statistic that received much attention in recent weeks. To put it in perspective, take a look at second place, occupied by Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas with 772 wickets in 81 Tests. If they continue to take an average of 9.53 wickets per match - which is what they have done to date - Murali and Vaas will have to play at least 24 more games together to beat McGrath and Warne. It's unlikely that they will but stranger things have happened. This week's List is about prolific partnerships of all sorts.

Australia won 71 Tests in which McGrath and Warne both took the field. It's a watertight record unless Adam Gilchrist plays for another 18 months and the nine Tests in that period; Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting are second with 63 wins together. Despite featuring in 104 Tests, though, McGrath and Warne do not hold the record for playing in the most matches together. That honour belongs to the Waugh twins who played together an astonishing 108 times. Incidentally, Mark played 107 of his 128 matches at a stretch, which is the second longest streak after Allan Border.

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Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble, currently on 105 Tests, are poised to overtake the Waughs' record when they tour England later this year. Tendulkar has also amassed 16,156 runs in 95 matches with Rahul Dravid and the closest competitors in this category are Ponting and Matthew Hayden, who've scored 14,326 runs at 186.30 per Test. They, with 57 wins for Australia, are closest to the McGrath-Warne record followed by Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher with 45 wins. Our bet, however, is on Ponting and Brett Lee nailing that particular record: they've so far featured in 43 wins for Australia.

You'd think that Brian Lara would figure high up on the list of run-scoring pairs, given that he has scored the most Test runs, but the first West Indian pairing is Gordon Greenidge and Viv Richards who scored 13,811 runs in the 99 Tests they played together. Lara's absence from the top ten highlights the lack of another prolific batsman in the West Indies line-up for a length of time.

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Hayden and Ponting and Gary Kirsten and Graeme Smith, who average 186.05 per Test, are the only two pairs from the 21st century to feature in the top 15 highest averages, which are dominated by batsmen who played most of their cricket before 1975. The most surprising pairing in the top 20 is Inzamam-ul-Haq and Shahid Afridi, who average 172.72 in the 22 Tests they've played together.

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Ironically, Stuart MacGill and Glenn McGrath have the highest average number of wickets per match - 9.74, which is marginally higher than Warne and McGrath's 9.62. It must be noted that MacGill and McGrath played together in only 27 Tests - largely due to Warne's presence. Unlike the batting averages table, the top ten bowling averages for pairs is dominated by bowlers in the 21st century, an indication that teams these days rely on just one or two bowlers to take the bulk of their wickets.

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