The best spearheads, and first-innings blues

Amid all the column inches devoted to Kevin Pietersen's exhilarating batting display and England's fine win at Edgbaston, one other individual achievement was almost ignored, perhaps because his team lost, but also because his wicket-taking acts have become so commonplace that another bagful hardly makes anyone sit up and take notice. Muttiah Muralitharan was at the receiving end during Pietersen's onslaught, but he bounced back quite superbly, taking 10 for 115 even as Sri Lanka were beaten by six wickets. It was Murali's 15th ten-wicket haul, a record in Tests and well clear of the second-placed Shane Warne, who has ten.

Another reason why Murali taking wickets is almost accepted as a fait accompli is because of the rest of the Sri Lankan bowling attack. Chaminda Vaas has been a worthy support act - though even he has struggled in England - but the rest of the cast has been decidedly short on class. Also, Murali's ability to wheel away over after over means he will invariably end up with a rich haul of wickets against his name.

The table below looks at the balls bowled and wickets taken by bowlers as a percentage of the deliveries sent down and wickets taken by the entire team. The difference between the percentage of wickets taken and balls bowled suggests the effectiveness of bowlers - a higher difference implies he has taken a disproportionately high number of wickets.

On top of this list is another bowler who has, for almost his entire career, done a one-man bowling act for New Zealand. Richard Hadlee took nearly 36% of all wickets that New Zealand managed in the matches he played, but bowled only about 25% of the deliveries. Those numbers further indicate just how devastating Hadlee was, and how toothless most of the other bowlers in the side were, but the bowler in second place certainly couldn't complain about lack of support. Allan Donald was part of a superb South African attack, and yet he stood out as the best of the lot - he took almost 29% of the wickets, but bowled only a little more than a fifth of the total deliveries. For Shaun Pollock, the difference is far more marginal - 24.50% of the wickets, and 22.59% of deliveries.

Murali comes in at fourth place, and while the high rank isn't surprising given his wicket-taking abilities, it is creditable considering the fact that he is a spinner, since slow bowlers generally have a higher strike rate than seamers. In fact, the next spinner in the list is Anil Kumble, in 32nd place with a difference of 2.55.

The difference is marginal for two of Australia's contemporary legends too: Glenn McGrath has bowled 26.03% balls and taken 24.40% wickets (difference 1.63), while the corresponding numbers for Shane Warne are 28.44 and 28.03 (difference 0.41).

At the other end of the spectrum are bowlers with a higher percentage of balls bowled than wickets taken. Among bowlers with at least 200 wickets, Daniel Vettori is on top of that list - he has taken only 21.66% of New Zealand's wickets when he played, but has bowled 24.75% of deliveries.

First-innings blues?
In both Tests of the current series against England, Sri Lanka have been fairly competent with the bat in their second innings, but their abysmal performances in the first innings have hurt them, and eventually cost them the second Test at Edgbaston. It's famously been said about the Indian team that they should play their second innings first, and perhaps that comment holds for all teams from the subcontinent when they tour England, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, the four countries which assist fast bowlers more than others?

The stats, though, indicate something entirely different. Despite their first-innings debacles in the first two Tests of the ongoing series, Sri Lanka's first-innings runs-per-wicket in the last ten years is only marginally lower than the corresponding figure for the second innings, while for Pakistan the second-innings numbers are marginally better. The big surprise, though, is India: over the last ten years, it seems they have learnt the art of playing the second innings first - their average when they bat the first time in a match is seven runs more than their second-innings stat.