Analysis of Andy Caddick usually concentrates on his penchant for bowling slightly short of a good length, but line was the key to his four-wicket burst at Auckland. As our graph shows, Caddick was slightly straighter than the rest of the England bowlers on a drop-in pitch that again offered plenty of help to the seamers. He pitched 20% of his deliveries (24 out of 121) in the crucial corridor of uncertainty around off and middle. For the rest of the bowlers, that figure was only 13% (27 out of 206).

If anything Hoggard and co. concentrated too much on pitching outside off stump, where they pitched 121 out of 206 deliveries. As a result the New Zealand batsmen were able to leave 65 of the 206 (32%) deliveries they received from the other England bowlers. By contrast, Caddick only allowed them to not play at the ball with confidence on 28 occasions (23%).

Caddick was also less errant than the rest. He bowled only 10 deliveries on leg-and-middle or further towards the leg side, whereas his teammates did so on 32 occasions.

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.

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