New Zealanders can't play spin

Cricinfo's latest stats analysis looks at players who perform particularly well (or poorly) against one particular country. The most alarming thing about this analysis is a list which shows bowlers who perform well against one nation. What is alarming about this list? Well, 7 of the top 10 players on the list had New Zealand as their easy-beat team. And all 7 are spin bowlers. Here they are:

GAR Lock (Eng), career average 25.58. Average v NZ 7.80
FJ Titmus (Eng),career average 32.22. Average v NZ 16.46
KJ O'Keeffe (Aust), career average 38.07. Average v NZ 24.04
S Ramadhin (WI), career average 28.98. Average v NZ 15.06
DL Underwood (Eng), career average 25.83. Average v NZ 12.20
S Venkataraghavan (Ind), career average 36.11. Average v NZ 22.81
Mushtaq Ahmed (Pak), career average 32.97. Average v NZ 20.05

There are a few other interesting snippets from the article. New Zealand has proved the nemesis of some great players, including Gary Sobers (career average 57.78, average v NZ 23.76) and Zaheer Abbas (career average 44.79, average v NZ 17.83) - but has also proved cannon fodder to a couple of others (Adam Gilchrist averages 76.91 against us while Mike Atherton averaged 68.00). Dan Vettori also has an interesting kicking boy and an interesting nemesis. While Dan averages 22.16 against such great players of spin as Sri Lanka - he averages only 70.06 against South Africa, who have a reputation for being very poor players of the turning ball.