It's one of cricket's staple myths: Steve Waugh started his Test career floundering against pace. But the reality is that Waugh started his Test career blundering against modest spin. In his first 10 Tests he was out 13 times, and 10 of those were to a variety of spinners (Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, Ravi Shastri, Shivlal Yadav, and the two Johns: Bracewell and Emburey). Of the three quicker bowlers who dismissed him, one was the distinctly military-medium Jeremy Coney. It looks like Waugh might be finishing his career in the same way, because in these series Waugh had a real problem with the sort of slow bowlers who, in his pomp, he would slog-sweep for fun. In these series Waugh averaged a wretched 12 against Claude Henderson, Nicky Boje and Paul Adams, making only 60 runs off 185 balls and losing his wicket five times. Contrast that with his form against the pacemen - 176 runs off 326 balls at an average of 58.67 - which was as good as ever. Having said that, Waugh was, as our graph shows, in control of 88% of his shots (162 out of 23) against the slow left-armers. The problem was that he was fully punished for his uncontrolled strokes.

Waugh has been struggling against spinners for a while now. In his last 18 Tests, excluding run outs and handled the balls, he has been dismissed 20 times, 60% of which (12 out of 20) were to the spinners. It's a list that includes some very humble performers, including Rahul Sanghvi, Mahendra Nagamootoo and even Marlon Samuels. In the 18 Tests before that he was out 22 times, and only 27% of those were to the spinners. It would be dangerous for Ashley Giles to start licking his lips just yet, but Waugh has certainly become more tentative and ragged against the slower stuff.

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.

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