Those who had to wait

Last week's List was about batsmen who endured the longest gaps between centuries or between scores of more than 50. This week's is the bowling equivalent - players who went the most matches and years between taking five and ten-wicket hauls.

Wally Hammond, a top-order batsman who bowled medium-fast, took a five-for on Test debut in December 1927. He scored a fifty in that match as well and is one of only eight players to take five wickets in an innings and score a half-century on debut. While more fifties and hundreds came with regularity in Hammond's following games, the second five-wicket haul took ages. Don Bradman once remarked Hammond "was too busy scoring runs to worry about bowling." He finally took his second five-for in his 61st Test, in January 1937. Hammond's 60 matches is the most anyone has gone between five-fors. Many, though, have endured gaps longer than his nine years.

Frank Woolley, a left-arm orthodox spinner who played 64 Tests for England between 1909 and 1934, went 40 matches between his third and fourth five-wicket haul. Those 40 matches spanned 17 years and 158 days, because of the First World War, and it's the longest period any bowler has gone between five-fors.

Among present players, Jacques Kallis appears twice in the table below. He went 47 Tests - from 68th to 115th - between his fourth and fifth five-wicket haul, after going 25 matches between his first and second.

Chaminda Vaas was the first Sri Lankan bowler to take a ten-wicket haul in a Test. He did it in his fifth Test - taking 10 for 90 to help rout New Zealand at Napier in 1995, Sri Lanka's first overseas victory. The rise of Muttiah Muralitharan, however, made it hard for the other Sri Lankans to claim ten in a Test. After Vaas' first, Murali took Sri Lanka's next nine ten-wicket hauls. Only in November 2001, nearly seven years and 50 Tests after Napier, did Vaas take his second ten-wicket haul: 14 for 191 at the SSC in 2001 in a ten-wicket win against West Indies. His gap of 50 matches between ten-wicket hauls is the largest in Tests.

While four bowlers have gone more than ten years between five-wicket hauls, only two bowlers have had to endure periods of similar length between ten-wicket hauls in Tests. BS Chandrasekhar took his second ten-wicket haul a little more than 11 years after his first, while Sydney Barnes' drought was 10 years and 170 days.

You'd think the bowler who played the most matches between five-wicket hauls in ODIs would be some part-timer who had two good days far apart - like Sachin Tendulkar for instance, who took five-fors in Kochi in 1998 and 164 matches later in 2005. Or Sanath Jayasuriya, or Sourav Ganguly, or anyone but Wasim Akram, the former world-record holder for most wickets.

Akram, however, spent nine years and 54 days without a five-wicket haul between December 1993 and February 2003. He took his fifth limited-overs five-for against Zimbabwe in Karachi in his 158th game, and then took his sixth in his 352nd match, against Namibia in the 2003 World Cup. Both the 194-match gap and the nine-year period between Akram's five-wicket hauls are the longest for any player.

The most matches and years between four-wicket hauls in ODIs belong to Steve Waugh, who went 188 matches and ten years without one. Waugh took his second four-for in 1988, against Sri Lanka at the SCG, and his third in 1998, against India in Sharjah.

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