Statto-geekery reveals Lee's impressive streak

There has been justified praise of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, whose innings of 104 today against South Africa not only put West Indies in a winnable position but was his seventh consecutive innings of 50 or better. Only Everton Weekes (named after the famous football club, Weekes United) and Andy Flower have done the same.

But statto-geek that I am, I have spotted an almost as impressive streak that continued in Australia earlier in the day when Brett Lee dismissed Anil Kumble. It gave the fast bowler his 250th Test wicket, the sixth Australian to do so, but also meant that he had taken at least three wickets for the eighth consecutive innings. He later got the wicket of Zaheer Khan, meaning that he has taken four wickets in his past five Test innings, all of them since Glenn McGrath retired. So much for Australia being a weaker side. Lee has stood up to the extra responsibility and responded in terrific fashion.

If five-fors get as much attention (places on honours boards and ball-waving to the crowd and all that) as hundreds, then for my money a three-for is worth the same as a batsman reaching 50. There is more scope for a bowler to fail to take three wickets for reasons not within his control (ie, other bowlers doing well or teams declaring) than there is for a batsman not reaching 50. Thus, I would argue, Brett Lee's achievement is even better than Chanderpaul's or at least comparable.

It is almost as rare. In an idle half-hour today, I checked the career figures of the usual suspects and reckon that Lee's eight consecutive three-fors has been matched or bettered by only six men. Charlie Turner did eight in a row in the 1880s (and seven of his were five-fors) as did Sydney Barnes and Imran Khan. Clarrie Grimmett took three wickets or more with the final nine innings of his leg-spinning career.

Waqar Younis also took nine three-fors in a row and then, astonishingly, followed it with 14 in succession in Tests from 1992-94. I thought that would be the record, but of course Muttiah Muralitharan trumped them all. He has gone on a streak of ten or more three-fors on four occasions, the most being in 2006-07 when he had 16 notable innings in a row. Just another eight more needed by Lee, then.