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Rough stuff
Wisden CricInfo staff - November 24, 2002

When a man scores 177 against Australia, it's reasonable to expect them to come up with a plan for the next innings. Glenn McGrath resorted to expletives, but Shane Warne had a slightly subtler plan for Michael Vaughan today. Despite bowling over the wicket almost exclusively to the other batsmen, Warne went persistently round the wicket to Vaughan, challenging his natural instincts by pitching it into the rough stuff outside leg stump.

It certainly had the effect of restricting Vaughan: he managed only eight runs off 56 balls off Warne (equivalent to 0.86 runs per over), as against 33 off 49 (4.04 per over) off the seamers. With the ball spitting and spinning so violently, Vaughan knew he would have to take a serious risk if he was to maintain his usually high strike rate.

The irony is that Warne got Vaughan almost as soon as he switched to over the wicket, although nobody – not even McGrath – could have foreseen the extraordinary circumstances in which he would claim the wicket.

Rob Smyth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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