By Martin Gough BBC Sport Online

It is hard to believe, but Shane Warne has only just accomplished a feat that most spin bowlers would regard as a rite of passage in Test cricket.

The Australian leg-spinner, in his 10th year at the highest level, took his career total to 461 wickets with figures of 11 for 188 against Pakistan.

It is his best performance away from home but, more surprisingly, just his first 10-wicket match haul in the subcontinent.

India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka traditionally favour spinners, but arguably the finest of them all has rarely been at his best there.

In fact, his last trip to India almost brought an end to Warne's Test career, when he managed just 10 wickets in three Tests, struggled obviously in the heat and appeared out of condition.

And it took a series against his favourite opponent, England, to revive Australia's finest.

Overall against India in India, Warne has just 20 wickets at an average of 52.25.

So why has the master spinner seemed so often out of his depth on what should be his favourite surfaces?

Warne has rarely been a happy tourist in foreign conditions, a fondness for burgers and beans proving harder to fulfil away from familiar surroundings.

But it could be his success at home, and in the similar conditions of England and New Zealand, that have left him vulnerable to batsmen who are more clued-up about spin.

Rare trips

Warne has often been able to simply make use of his three main deliveries to bewilder batsmen - 21 of his 31 five-wicket innings hauls have come at home.

When batsmen take the attack to him, as India especially have tended to do, he has appeared to be without a suitable comeback.

And the fact that Australia rarely make Test trips to Asia cannot have helped - Warne has toured India twice, but Pakistan and Sri Lanka only once each.

He had some success on that tour of Pakistan in 1994/95, but even then he came up just short.