Pietersen's battles against left-arm spin

These days almost all sides look to play a left-arm spinner as soon as they notice Kevin Pietersen in the opposition line-up, but it wasn't always so - through almost half his Test career, Pietersen hardly faced any left-arm spin. He has played 72 Tests so far, but in his first 33, he faced only 54 deliveries of any sort of left-arm spin. And they weren't exactly of the lethal type either - 31 of those were from Michael Clarke, 12 from Sanath Jayasuriya, and 11 from Simon Katich. All was well with Pietersen's world at that point, as he averaged 50.40, and scored ten centuries in those 33 matches.

Then, suddenly, the opposition teams realised the weakness. It began during the three-Test away and home series against New Zealand in 2008. In six Tests, Vettori dismissed him four times, which accounted for more than 20% of his total wickets in the two series. The template had been created, and other teams were happy to follow it and reap the rewards. Between the beginning of 2008 and midway through 2009, Pietersen fell to left-arm spin ten times out of his 25 dismissals to all bowlers, as Paul Harris, Sulieman Benn, Ryan Hinds and Yuvraj Singh all tasted success against him. During this period, his average against all bowlers was an impressive 56.54, but against slow left-arm it fell to a measly 34.20. Clearly, he was performing below par against a particular type of bowling. (During this period, he averaged 66.53 against right-arm pace, 62 against left-arm pace, and 152 against right-arm spin.)

In the last two years, though, it would be unfair to say Pietersen has struggled only against left-arm spin, because he has had problems against all kinds of bowling - his average against left-arm spin is almost exactly as much as the average against all bowlers (40.77 to 40.80). Of his 30 dismissals to all bowlers, nine have been to this variety of bowlers, with Shakib Al Hasan getting him four times. However, he has also fallen to left-arm pace five times, at an average of 30.60, and to right-arm pace 13 times, averaging 39.15 per dismissal. So while it seems he doesn't now have a particular weakness against left-arm spin alone, it also looks like the malaise that earlier existed only against one form of bowling has spread to the others as well.

Overall in his career, Pietersen has relished right-arm spin more than any other type of bowling, averaging almost 60 runs per wicket, and scoring at more than four runs per over against them. Left-arm spin is the only type of bowling against which his average is below 40.

Among the bowlers who've dismissed him most often, though, the first four are all right-arm bowlers. Three of them are absolute legends, but of those three Pietersen has done well against Shane Warne, averaging almost 62 runs per dismissal against him. Muralitharan and McGrath, though, have excellent records against him, conceding less than 30 runs per wicket. The two left-arm spinners follow a little later in the list, while Benn and Harris are among the seven bowlers who have dismissed him three times.

Making a habit of innings victories

England have been having it pretty good with innings victories of late - their last five Test wins have all been by an innings, with three of them coming in the 3-1 Ashes triumph in Australia. However, since the beginning of the 2000s, the team which has notched up the highest number of innings wins is South Africa: they've thrashed their opponents in this manner on 25 occasions, which is five more than Australia's tally. South Africa have also played eight fewer Tests than Australia during this period, which means roughly one in five Tests they play has ended in an innings victory for them. Seventeen of those wins have been in home games and three in Bangladesh, but they've also won handsomely in other countries, including three times in India, and once each at Lord's and Barbados.

Australia haven't won by an innings in India, but they have achieved the result in Sharjah (twice, against Pakistan), in England (three times), and once in Johannesburg. Thirteen of their 20 innings wins have come at home, but most of those emphatic margins were achieved during their glory - since the beginning of 2007, they've managed only four innings wins. The stats are much more lopsided for Sri Lanka: out of their 17 innings victories, 15 have been achieved at home and two in Zimbabwe. In fact, seven wins have come at the SSC alone, with three more at the P Sara Oval, and a couple each in Galle and Kandy.

England's spread is pretty home-dominated too, with only four out of 19 innings victories being achieved overseas - three of them came in one series, in Australia last season, while the other was in the Boxing Day Test in Durban in 2009. New Zealand have achieved a fair number of such wins, but it turns out that seven out of nine such results were against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.