Wicked ends to wicket droughts

Two weeks ago, after Alastair Cook converted his Test series average against India from 5.00 to 62.80 with 294 at Edgbaston, we dug up a list of batsmen who ended a run of small scores with a double-century. Harbhajan Singh had the opportunity to perform the bowling equivalent. He averaged 218 for one wicket after Lord's and 143 for 2 after Trent Bridge, but there was no average-plummeting spell from him. He hobbled out of the tour with a stomach injury. Perhaps it'll come against West Indies in November. This week's column is about bowlers who did turn it around, sometimes rather spectacularly.

Bob Holland, the Australia legspinner, was 39. His form had dipped since the five-for at Lord's in 1985 and his figures for the rest of the Ashes were 1 for 90, 0 for 69, 0 for 101 and 0 for 95. He'd been wicketless in the first Test (0 for 106 at the Gabba) of that summer's home series against New Zealand as well, which Australia lost by an innings and 41 runs. At the SCG, however, Holland ended his poor form with 6 for 106 in the first innings and 4 for 68 in the second, becoming the fifth-oldest bowler - the oldest since World War II - to take a ten-wicket haul in a Test.

During West Indies' tour of Australia in 1988-89, two players took five-wicket hauls after going 10 innings with poor results. Before the MCG Test, Steve Waugh had taken only four wickets in 10 previous innings. Waugh then took 3 for 77 in the first innings (lowering his ten-innings average to 75) in Melbourne before picking up 5 for 92 in the second. The fact that he was Australia's most successful bowler meant that West Indies won by 285 runs.

In the next Test of that home series against West Indies, at the SCG, Allan Border took 11 for 96 in Australia's seven-wicket victory. In 10 innings prior to his 7 for 46 in the first innings in Sydney, Border had taken one wicket at an average of 117 in 56 overs. In 20 previous innings, he'd taken only one wicket in 91.1 overs. In 17 innings after the 4 for 50 in the second innings at the SCG, Border managed only three wickets. So his career-best was a bolt from the blue.

Daniel Vettori had been struggling for wickets when he came to Bangladesh in 2004. In his previous 19 innings, he'd taken only 20 wickets at more than 70 apiece. Six of his previous nine innings had been wicketless. In the first innings of the first Test, in Dhaka, Vettori took 2 for 26. He was only warming up. In his next three innings - the second in Dhaka and two in Chittagong - he took six wickets each time.

Brett Lee has the best ODI strike rate (29.1) among bowlers with more than 100 one-day wickets. His record took a beating in February and March 2006, though, when he went wicketless in four consecutive innings, against Sri Lanka and South Africa. That streak - the only time Lee has been wicketless for more than two successive matches - was bookended by two one-wicket hauls. So he had an average of 210 in four matches before the third ODI against South Africa in Port Elizabeth, where he took 4 for 28 in Australia's 24-run victory.