Check out Warne's strike rate, though, and you notice -- if you leave out India, against whom the adjective "strike" is a

misnomer, and to a lesser extent Sri Lanka -- that his balls-per-wicket ratio is fairly even against all teams. In fact, the most surprising fact is that his most frequent strike is against Pakistan. Similarly, his average (runs per wicket) is, again, lowest against Pakistan. Which, given that team's ability to play spin, and its further advantage in practising against Mushtaq Ahmed, a leading practitioner of the art of leg spin, strikes you as a bit of an oddity.

Country	Tests	Balls	Runs	Wkts	Avg	Runs per over	Strike rate (Balls per wkt)
India	4	1050	582	6	97.00	3.32	175.00
England	17	5599	2003	85	23.56	2.14	65.87
Sri Lanka	5	1217	591	15	39.40	2.91	81.13
West Indies	13	2781	1313	47	27.93	2.83	59.17
New Zealand	9	2887	1037	54	19.20	2.15	53.46
Pakistan	6	1780	702	37	18.97	2.36	48.10
South Africa	12	4117	1342	64	20.96	1.95	64.32
Total	66	19431	7570	308	24.57	2.33	63.08

But in this table, the one feature that could best explain the Australian team's plight in India relates to Warne's economy rate. South African coach Bob Woolmer recently said that the problem with the leggie was that even when he was not getting wickets, he would strangle one end up with his incredible accuracy, and thus keep the pressure on.

The table here indicates that this is true. And leading from that, the logical inference would be that his inability to keep the Indian batsmen on the leash (he is now going at 3.32, almost a run over his overall RPO of 2.33) forms a bulk of Taylor's woes on this tour, since Warne here is neither containing, nor striking, as per his wont.

Statistics: Anant Gaundalkar

BACK

NEXT