da wazamba： He has been South Africa’s answer to Glenn McGrath with the ball, and has contributed more than usefully with the bat over his ten years in international cricket
da 888casino： S Rajesh15-Apr-2006
Another milestone to celebrate for Shaun Pollock © Getty Images
He has been South Africa’s answer to Glenn McGrath with the ball, and has contributed more than usefully with the bat over his ten years in international cricket. With a bowling average of 23.21 and a batting average of 31.51, Pollock is a member of the dying breed of genuine allrounders in the game. The bowling might have gone down a notch, but Shaun Pollock has every reason to be proud of the kind of numbers he has achieved in his 99-Test career.Just 22 when he made his Test debut, Pollock impressed immediately with an outstanding series at home against England, taking 16 wickets at 23. Since then, his consistency has been his forte: in 32 series (excluding one-off matches), only four times has his bowling average gone beyond 30, but three of those instances occurred over the last couple of seasons, when his pace has visibly decreased, making him a less potent bowler.A five-for in the last Test of his first series brought his bowling average down to 23, and it’s stayed on the right side of 25 almost throughout since.
20 73 23.30 4/ 0 40 166 20.63 10/ 0 60 253 20.14 14/ 1 80 326 21.14 16/ 1 99 389 23.21 16/ 1With 389 wickets, Pollock is tenth in the all-time list of leading wicket-takers, and easily the highest among all South Africans – Allan Donald, his new-ball partner for a considerable period, is next with 330. None of the others have even managed 250, with Makhaya Ntini being one short of the mark. Among South Africans with at least 100 Test wickets, only two have a better average than Pollock’s 23.21.
Neil Adcock 26 104 21.105/ 0 Allan Donald 72 330 22.2520/ 3 Shaun Pollock 99 389 23.2116/ 1 Peter Pollock 28 116 24.189/ 1One of his most remarkable achievements has been his wicket-taking ability in the subcontinent, where pitches are usually more responsive to spin bowling. Pollock has consistently found success here, with an average which is marginally better than his career stats. And these numbers exclude his performances in Bangladesh, where he has taken seven wickets at 10.85. Include those numbers, and his subcontinent stats look even better – 59 wickets at 21.68.
(Qual: 50 wickets)
Wes Hall 11 54 20.053/ 1 Courtney Walsh 17 77 20.535/ 0 Richard Hadlee 13 68 21.585/ 2 Glenn McGrath 19 72 23.021/ 0 Malcolm Marshall 19 71 23.053/ 0 Shaun Pollock 14 52 23.132/ 0Though bowling has been his stronger suit, Pollock the batsman has been a more-than-handy lower-order performer, as an average of 31 testifies. He is among a handful of cricketers with at least 2000 runs and 150 wickets who has a higher batting average than the bowling one. At the head of the pack is Jacques Kallis, another South African who’ll play his 100th Test at Centurion.
Jacques Kallis 7840/ 56.40 196/ 31.68 24.72 Garry Sobers 8032/ 57.78 235/ 34.03 23.75 Imran Khan 3807/ 37.69 362/ 22.81 14.88 Keith Miller 2958/ 36.97 170/ 22.97 14.00 Shaun Pollock 3372/ 31.51 389/ 23.21 8.30 Ian Botham 5200/ 33.54 383/ 28.40 5.14 Richard Hadlee 3124/ 27.16 431/ 22.29 4.87 Chris Cairns 3320/ 33.53 218/ 29.40 4.13 Andrew Flintoff 3080/ 33.47 174/ 31.45 2.02 Kapil Dev 5248/ 31.05 434/ 29.64 1.41Pollock, though, has struggled to make his mark against the best team in the world: against all the other sides he concedes less than 24 runs per wicket, but against Australia it goes up to nearly 37, with a wicket every 80 balls, compared to one every 59 balls against the other teams. That’s the one blot in an otherwise glittering career. (Click here for Pollock’s career summary.)