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A dance to the music of turn
Wisden CricInfo staff - December 12, 2001

Craig White and James Foster used their feet - and their heads - to help England past 400 on the second day at Ahmedabad. Our graphs show their footwork to the Indian spinners, and most of the time they were either decisively forward or back (or stepping out of the crease). Between them they faced 273 deliveries from Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag - and only on 10 occasions were the batsmen stuck on the crease by virtue of minimal footwork. Mark Ramprakash's dismissal on the first day highlighted the perils of playing back to the spinners, and Foster in particular was keen to get forward - while he was just as inclined to play the seamers off the back foot as the front (16 forward, 16 back), he was more than three times as likely to get forward to the spinners (53/17). When you think how Richard Blakey suffered at the hands of the Anil Kumble topspinner, in 1992-93, you can't really blame him.

White was slightly more inclined to play off the back foot, and, interestingly, both batsmen scored more freely off the back foot than the front: Foster one run every two balls (8 from 17), as against one every five off the front (11 from 53), and White one run from two off the back (37 from 71) as compared to one from four off the front (25 from 101).

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com

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