Friday 25 November 2016 09:56, UK
With Adil Rashid starring in the first two Tests of the series in India, Benedict Bermange takes a closer look at the stats behind his success...
Oh how England have longed for a leg-spinner of their own...
One glance at the leading wicket-takers of all time shows that two of the top three positions are occupied by leg-spinners - Shane Warne (708) and Anil Kumble (619).
However, working further down the list, it is not until No 154 in the list that the first English leg-spinner appears. That man is Doug Wright - perhaps best-known for having taken a record seven hat-tricks in first-class cricket.
Wright's Test career extended from 1938 until 1951 and produced 108 wickets in 34 Tests. The highlight of his Test career came in the 1947 Lord's Test against South Africa when he took 10 wickets but for the majority of the time he was England's lone spinner, bowling with little or no support.
In the 35 years from 1980 until Adil Rashid made his debut, English leg-spinners combined for just 27 Test wickets at 77.07 apiece.
These included 'specialists' Ian Salisbury and Chris Schofield, as well as the occasional twirlers such as Michael Atherton, Kim Barnett and even Nasser Hussain.
Before Rashid's debut second-innings five-for at Abu Dhabi in October 2015, the last England leg-spinner with a five-wicket haul was Tommy Greenhough against India at Lord's in 1959.
So far this series, Rashid has claimed 13 wickets in his two Tests, which is the most for any England leg-spinner in any series since Greenhough took 14 in his three Tests against India in 1959.
Going back even further, Roly Jenkins took 16 in five Tests on the 1948/49 tour of South Africa. With three matches left to play, Rashid has every chance to set a new record for an English leg-spinner in any series, which is currently held by 'Tich' Freeman, who took 22 wickets against the West Indies in three Tests in 1928 and then repeated the feat the following summer against South Africa.
In fact, only three visiting leg-spinners have ever taken more than 14 wickets in a Test series in India, with Richie Benaud the stand-out performer:
Warne's best return from a series in India came in the three-Test series in 2004-05 when he took 14 wickets at 30.07.
Back to Rashid - his seven-Test career has so far brought him 28 wickets at an average of 40.53. Let's see how that start to a career compares to other recent leading leg-spinners together with their points in the ICC World Bowling Rankings after seven Tests:
Not too shabby in terms of his overall haul - twice the number of wickets a certain blonde Australian leg-spinner had taken at the same age. However, his world ranking points are far below the bowlers above him which warrants further investigation.
One aspect of the World Ranking system is that it takes into account which batsmen a bowler dismisses, so let's see how Rashid has performed against opposition batsmen:
More of a picture starts to form. Against the tail he is unplayable - taking a wicket every four overs. But against the specialist batsmen in the side, he struggles, with an average of nearly 80 against him.
Let's put that in perspective. Since 2000, a total of 230 bowlers have taken at least 20 Test wickets. Here are the most extreme ratios of how they have done against the top order compared to the lower order in terms of bowling average:
Over that period of time, no bowler has taken more Test wickets than Rashid with a worse ratio of top order to lower order performance. For interest, over the same time period only seven bowlers had better averages against the top order than the lower order, and just two of them boast more than fifty Test wickets:
Another bizarre stat involving Rashid is that he has taken 28 wickets while bowling only 20 maidens. This is pretty rare, with only two bowlers having ever taken more wickets than Rashid while bowling fewer maidens than wickets taken. Here are the top five in that respect:
Obviously it is early in Rashid's career and given his current age of 28 he is likely to improve. Historically spin bowlers have reached their peak points tally in the ICC World Bowling Rankings at the average age of 30 years six months which suggests that he may be a couple of years away from reaching his peak.
It will certainly be interesting to see how he progresses although it may be some time before England are convinced to play him in a home Test and opt for an attack featuring two spinners.
Watch Rashid and England in action in the third Test against India in Mohali, live on Sky Sports 2 from 3.30am on Saturday.
