Vaughan's ODI travails, and peerless Vettori

When Michael Vaughan was pottering around, straining every sinew to get to his 30 runs off 59 deliveries against Bangladesh, it was difficult to imagine that four seasons back, the same batsman was thrashing an Australian attack that included Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Shane Warne. Vaughan's Test stats have fallen away since those heady days as well, but it's as a one-day international player that he doesn't look the part - he never has, since making his debut against Sri Lanka six years ago.

The bare numbers are ordinary - 1886 runs in 84 matches at an average of less than 27, with 15 fifties but no centuries - and they're probably even worse than they look, for Vaughan has mostly batted in the top three - 62 of his innings have either been as an opener or at one-down. That should ideally have given him plenty of opportunities to get to the three-figure mark, but Vaughan has managed to fritter away all those chances.

The table below lists out batsmen with the lowest averages when batting in the top four positions in the line-up. There are seven batsmen before Vaughan, but three of them had another dimension to them. Kennedy Otieno, who leads the list, played most of his ODIs for Kenya as their wicketkeeper, as did Sri Lanka's Romesh Kaluwitharana. Shahid Afridi's legspin has given Pakistan's attack an extra bowling option; besides, his scoring rate of more than a run a ball ensures that when he does get starts, the opposition is immediately on the back foot. Vaughan, on the other hand, has struggled with both the runs and the run-rate - he scores at 66 runs per 100 balls, which, going by current standards at the top of the order, is pedestrian. (Boeta Dippenaar, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Marvan Atapattu are three other top-order batsmen with similar strike rates, but they all averaged more than 37.)

The problem for Vaughan when he bats up the order has been two-fold: he is unable to score for long periods - in the first 15 overs his dot-ball percentage is more than 73%, which is way too high during a period when the fielders are within the circle, presenting plenty of opportunities for batsmen to go over the top. Moreover, he has also fallen during this period 33 times, which puts England on the back foot - and the opposition in the ascendancy - right from the start. He has better stats when batting in the later overs, which suggests it might be worthwhile for the England think-tank to push him down to No.4 or 5 for a few games.

An often-heard criticism about Vaughan is that he fails to convert his starts, but equally, he also fails to get off to starts too many times - he has failed to get past 10 on 29 occasions, and has fallen between 11 and 30 another 27 times. Add the two, and it turns out that 56 times out of 77 (excludes innings under 30 in which he was unbeaten) he has been dismissed for 30 or lesser, which is a whopping 73% of his innings. From a top-order batsman, that surely isn't good enough.

The pleasing aspect about Vaughan's batting is that he's so elegant, correct, and plays by the book, but that tendency also allows opposition captains to set orthodox fields to him, knowing that he won't hoick good-length balls outside off over square leg. (When he does try to be unorthodox, he usually gets out.) The bowlers who've had the most success against him are the ones who don't bowl at express pace, but are naggingly accurate. Check out Vaughan's average and scoring rate against the two best bowlers of that kind, Shaun Pollock and Glenn McGrath. When given more pace to work with - most notably against Brett Lee and Makhaya Ntini - he's had far more success.

The final stats still don't stack up, though, and with crucial World Cup games coming up over the next few days, Duncan Fletcher and Vaughan himself will have to decide how best to utilise a weapon that clearly isn't firing.

New Zealand didn't have much to cheer during their six-wicket drubbing against Sri Lanka, but their best spinner reached a significant milestone, becoming only the third bowler from New Zealand to get to 200 wickets in ODIs. Vettori has often toiled in conditions which haven't been suitable for spin bowling, but in the last four years he has become a far more potent bowler, both in terms of keeping the runs down and nailing the wickets.

In fact, the way the 2007 World Cup has contrasted with the earlier one for him encapsulates just how much he has improved as a bowler. In the 2003 edition, Vettori was good at staunching the runs, but struggled for wickets, managing just two in seven matches at an average of 129.50. This time around, he has consistently been among the wickets, already nabbing 14 in seven matches, at a superb average of 20.42.

In fact, during this four-year period since the 2003 World Cup, Vettori's performance has been nearly as good as Muttiah Muralitharan's, and easily much better than any other spinner's.

Vettori has been outstanding when bowling in the middle overs during this period (since the 2003 World Cup) but he has also done his bit when asked to bowl in the last ten, taking his wickets cheaply and going at less than a run a ball.

Vettori has fought some tough battles with the best batsmen during these last four years, and the table below lists out his numbers against each. It's noticeable that the left-handers have been more secure against him - Michael Hussey, Matthew Hayden and Kumar Sangakkara all have healthy averages against him - but even they have found him difficult to get away. Among the right-handers, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Mohammad Yousuf have had plenty of success against him, but some of the others have struggled. Vettori has found plenty of success against batsmen who play by the book, and whose first intent isn't all-out attack - Damien Martyn, Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis are all orthodox players, and Vettori has won his battles against each of them.