Dubious decision or not, it was no surprise that Alec Stewart should provide Shane Warne with his 400th Test wicket: the England wicketkeeper is Warne's favourite victim. He has dismissed him 11 times in Tests, two more than his second-favourite bunnies, who both (surprise, surprise) happen to be English: Mike Atherton and Graham Thorpe. And Stewart provided Warne with his 250th Test wicket, at Old Trafford in 1997. Warne is the first Australian, the first spinner, and the sixth bowler in all to take 400 Test wickets. He now has Curtly Ambrose (405) and Wasim Akram (414) in his sights. Richard Hadlee (431), Kapil Dev (434) and Courtney Walsh (519) are a little further away.

This is the first time Warne has achieved a Test century landmark away from home. His first victim was Indian allrounder Ravi Shastri, caught by Dean Jones at Sydney in 1991-92. His 100th was another allrounder, Brian McMillan of South Africa, lbw at Adelaide in 1993-94. Ricky Ponting shared in No. 200 by catching Sri Lanka's Hashan Tillekeratne at Perth in 1995-96 - and the Warne 300 was brought up when South African wicketkeeper Dave Richardson fell to him for the second time in the match at Sydney in 1997-98. The caught-and-bowled was the last of Warne's 11 wickets in the match.

Warne took his 300th wicket in his 63rd Test, an average of 4.76 per match. Held back by a major shoulder operation since then, it has taken him another 29 matches to take his next 100 wickets, an average of 3.45. Even so, Warne has reached 400 in 92 Tests, faster than anyone except the remarkable Hadlee, who took just 80 matches to reach the landmark.

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