The First Innings Spinner

In the modern game (the era of covered pitches) the role of a spinner has often been to come in when the pitch is starting to break up and bowl out a team. The theory is that a good spin bowler is almost impossible to play on the final day and a half of a test match.

There is one glaring exception to this rule: Daniel Vettori.

With his subtle changes of pace, and the fact that he relies more on bounce than spin, he has often found the pitches at the end of the game less to his liking than the ones at the start.

Less than 10% of his wickets have come in the fourth innings. He only once took a 5 wicket bag in the 4th innings, and that was in his first season, when he was a very different bowler than he is now.

To demonstrate the difference I've compiled a list of bowlers based on their performances first in a teams first innings, then in a teams second innings:

Bowling in a teams 1st innings by a modern spinner. (qual. 90 wickets)

Name	Wickets	Average	Strike-rate	5 Wicket bags
SCG MacGill	112	29.08	53.8	6
M Muralitharan	458	23.94	57.9	39
BS Chandrasekhar	125	29.41	61.1	11
SK Warne	349	28.04	61.3	18
Saqlain Mushtaq	135	30.22	65.4	11
Abdul Qadir	151	32.19	70.1	10
Danish Kaneria	149	37.26	71.1	8
A Kumble	339	32.16	72.5	18
DL Vettori	215	32.61	74.4	13
Harbhajan Singh	219	37.28	75.5	14
Mushtaq Ahmed	104	40.16	79.2	4
Iqbal Qasim	93	31.74	84.7	4
BS Bedi	124	34.43	89.9	6
RJ Shastri	106	44.28	111	2

This puts him in some good company, at a similar level to Anil Kumble, Abdul Qadir and Danish Kaneria, all very good bowlers.

However the next table is for a teams second innings. It is not so flattering.

Bowling in a teams 2nd innings by a modern spinner. (qual. 50 wickets)

Name	Wickets	Average	Strike-rate	5 Wicket bags
M Muralitharan	342	21.08	51.2	28
Mushtaq Ahmed	81	23.74	52.9	6
SK Warne	359	22.85	53.7	19
SCG MacGill	96	28.96	54.1	6
Harbhajan Singh	174	25.01	57	11
A Kumble	280	26.6	58	17
PR Adams	67	30.64	58	1
JG Bracewell	55	25.21	60	4
GP Swann	60	28.46	60.5	5
Danish Kaneria	112	31.5	63.3	7
N Boje	62	30.12	64.6	2
BS Bedi	72	21.79	64.8	4
BS Chandrasekhar	55	28.72	64.8	3
MS Panesar	64	29.31	65.3	6
Iqbal Qasim	78	23.78	65.8	4
AA Mallett	55	29.21	71.6	1
Saqlain Mushtaq	73	29.12	71.7	2
AF Giles	61	36.09	76.5	2
Abdul Qadir	85	33.88	76.8	5
PL Harris	52	30.69	78.1	1
JE Emburey	63	28.61	82.4	4
DL Vettori	129	36.08	82.5	6
PCR Tufnell	58	29.18	82.8	3
ST Jayasuriya	51	35.13	88.7	0

To make matters worse, if we compare the averages, then he moves a step further down the table, with only Ashley Giles below him (and then only by 0.01 of a run).

The contrast between the two tables is quite incredible. He is one of only two spin bowlers to have taken 100 wickets in the modern era, and average worse in the second innings than the first. The other bowler is Graeme Swann, and his averages are only 0.67 apart. Vettori's difference is 3.47.

If he is to bowl out Pakistan in the fourth innings in the current test at Wellington, it will be a performance against the form book.