Harbhajan's hurrah, and a duck for Dravid

Perhaps numbers never do reveal the full story, but they tell a large part of it. Every Friday, The Numbers Game will take a look at statistics from the present and the past, busting myths and revealing hidden truths:

Feasting on fifty wickets
There wasn't much cheer for the Indians in the Bangalore Test against Australia, but one performance which would have given them hope of a comeback was Harbhajan Singh's 11 for 224. It wasn't the most inexpensive ten-for in a match, but his displays - especially the 6 for 78 in the second innings - were cause for optimism. With an incredible haul of 48 wickets from six Tests plus one innings (stats up to the end of Australia's first innings in the Chennai Test), Harbhajan is well on his way to becoming only the second bowler to get to the 50-wicket mark against them in seven Tests. The only other player to perform that feat was Tom Richardson, England's fast bowler in the 1890s. In a career which lasted only 14 Tests - all against Australia - Richardson ended with 88 wickets at a shade over 25.

The Australians are traditionally supposed to have a weakness against offspinners, and, not surprisingly, there's another of that ilk who had more than his fair share of success against them - Erapalli Prasanna needed only nine Tests to take 50 Australian scalps, exactly as many games as Robert Peel, a left-arm spinner who represented England in the 1880s and 1890s and ended with quite incredible stats of 101 wickets from 20 matches at 16.98.

Talk of offspinners succeeding against the Australians, and it's impossible to ignore the exploits of a certain Jim Laker, who accounted for 19 of them in a single game, at Manchester. That match - incidentally his tenth against Australia - helped catapult his tally against them from 38 in nine games to 57 in ten. Laker, though, is clubbed together with a host of other bowlers who achieved the feat in ten Tests, among them being Anil Kumble, Kapil Dev, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner and Muttiah Muralitharan.

There have been other instances of bowlers getting to 50 wickets against other teams in less than seven matches. Sydney Barnes, who took an amazing 189 wickets from 27 matches, took ten-fors in each of his first five Tests against South Africa, at which time his tally against them stood at 61. The South Africans would have been particularly pleased with the fact that he didn't torment them for long - he only played seven Tests against them, taking 83 wickets at a freakish average of 9.85.

While Barnes was incredibly consistent against South Africa, Harbhajan's wickets against Australia have come in spurts - 39 of his wickets against them came in three matches. He averages an impressive 24.25 against them, but those figures would have looked even better had he stayed away from the Brisbane Test in 2003-04. Visibly hampered by a finger injury, Harbhajan returned dismal figures of 1 for 169 in what was arguably the lowest point of his international career. (Click here for Harbhajan's match-by-match performance against Australia.)

Of failures at home
When Rahul Dravid got a duck in the first innings of the Bangalore Test, it was the first time that he had failed to open his account in 34 home Tests, but the second time in three innings that he failed to get off the mark - he had run out for 0 in the second innings at Lahore as well. (In between those two ducks, though, was that monumental 270 in the third Test at Rawalpindi, giving Dravid the rather bizarre run of 0, 270, 0 in his last three innings.)

Dravid's feat of not scoring a duck in his first 33 home Tests has been bettered only by five batsmen. Leading the way is Javed Miandad, who avoided the ignominy entirely in the 60 matches he played in Pakistan - all his six zeroes came overseas. Alec Stewart figures in the list as well, while Mark Butcher has so far escaped the naught in 34 home games.

S Rajesh is assistant editor of Wisden Cricinfo.