Ajmal clash

The ongoing Test series between Pakistan and England has presented a wonderful stage for a battle between arguably the two best spinners going around in Test cricket today. There are some who will make the case for Daniel Vettori, and while he remains a superb spinner in all forms of the game - and perhaps the best in the shorter versions - his relatively poor strike rate in Tests means he must cede the top spots to Graeme Swann and Saeed Ajmal. These two spinners turn the ball a long way, have outstanding variations, and their default mode is to search for wickets. The pitches in the two Tests so far have been fantastic, offering plenty of bounce for spinners and enough, but not alarming, turn. Ajmal haswon this battle against Swann, taking 17 wickets at 13.35 to Swann's 9 at 25 - and thereby moving up to second place in the ICC Test rankings for bowlers - but their overall numbers are so close that it's difficult to separate the two.

They made their Test debuts within seven months of each other - Swann started in December 2008 and Ajmal in July 2009 - and yet Swann has played twice as many Tests as Ajmal has. That's largely because Swann has played pretty much every Test that England have played during this period, while Ajmal hasn't for Pakistan. Of the 40 Tests that England have played since Swann's debut, he has missed only two - in Kingston and North Sound, against West Indies. Ajmal, on the other hand, has missed ten of Pakistan's 29 Tests since his debut, most of them on tours to Australia, England and New Zealand, countries where conditions don't generally support spin as much as in Asia.

Overall Ajmal has played eight Tests outside Asia, but only one in Australia (in which he had match figures of 2 for 223) and none in South Africa. Swann, on the other hand, has played nine Tests in Australia and South Africa, taking 36 wickets at 34.89.

That said, though, the skills Ajmal has displayed over the last nine months have been outstanding. It all started with a match haul of 11 for 111 against West Indies in Providence, and since then he has been a force in almost every Test he has played in. In his last ten Tests, including that Providence game, Ajmal has taken 67 wickets at 21.19. Only twice during this period has he taken less than five wickets in a Test. That sudden spurt of wickets has taken his overall Test tally to 100 in only 19 matches; at the same stage of his career, Swann had 85.