Mohammad Sami

Mohammad Sami – good bowling speed, like usual, but wickets too

Never judge a pitch until both teams have batted, but if a side’s bowled out for 127 and they’ve chosen to bat, you can take a good long look at the captain and maybe laugh at him a bit.

Ricky Ponting should have been wary of Mohammad Asif, who’s probably the best bowler in the world at the minute, but he wouldn’t have worried about Mohammad Sami one bit.

Surely no frontline bowler in history has played so many Tests and yet had such a shit record. In his 33 Tests prior to this match, Sami had taken 81 wickets at 51.37. To put that in perspective, Ponting can consider himself the superior bowler with an average of 48.40.

That’s not the whole story though. Sami was the Next Big Thing once upon a time and has often hinted at being quite a bowler. He can bowl at 95mph and has both a Test and one-day international hat trick. Surely it’s some kind of sorcery to cram a hat trick into a Test bowling record that’s that gash?