Innings Win at Dharamshala - some statistical delights including Sixers !!

Back in 1976 India outplayed NewZealand at Chepauk and I was keen to see Glenn Turner – their Captain.  High expectations as he had scored 171* & 114* in 1975 World Cup.  He scored close to 3000 runs in Tests including 7 Centuries but is an unlikely topper in a list of records – Imagine what ?

 

Today at Dharamsala – India cleaned England to close the series 4-1.  The score card reads :  India 477 (Gill 110, Rohit 103, Padikkal 65, Sarfaraz 56, Bashir 5-173) beat England 218 and 195 (Root 84, Ashwin 5-77, Bumrah 2-38) by an innings and 64 runs.  Call it Bazball or whatever, it was meek submission as wickets kept falling like being struck by an avalanche in Himalayas.  What started as having reached the peak, ended in ignominy. 

Some matches are statisticians delight.  This one too as it was the 100th test for Ravichandran Ashwin and Jhonny Bairstow.  After today’s win India’s record reads : 178 – 178 !!  - for the first time, their wins is not lesser than the losses.  Four Teams have a positive win record – Australia, England, South Africa & Pakistan. 

 

As expected Ashwin opened the bowling and had another five for.  9 for 128 – is  Ashwin's bowling figures in Dharamsala, the best for any player in their 100th Test. Muralidaran's match figures of 9 for 141 against Bangladesh in 2006 were the previous best in a 100th Test.  There was another bowling achievement, KUldeep Yadav had a 7 wicket haul and was the player of the match.  James Anderson became the first pace bowler to take 700 wickets – the other two above him are : Shane Warne 708 and Muttiah Muralitharan 800 

In Cricket, a Six is much relished one just as clean bowled or a straight drive would be !! remember Srinivasan Venkatraghavan hitting a clean six over mid wicket off Peter Petherick in that Chepauk test in 1976.  International cricket has witnessed several devastating batters dominate the game around their six-hitting abilities.  In our younger days, we read that Salim Durrani was devastating, crowds would demand a six, and he would oblige with one – he ended up hitting 15 sixers !  - then Vengsarkar burst into the scene with six hitting capability, later it was Kapil Dev, Sandip Patil, Krish Srikkanth – Yashpal Sharma too delighted with some sixers in the 1983 WC – in 1987, a dour Sidhu changed gears to become Six hitting Sidhu ! – there have been many touted to be big hitters like Atul Bedade, Amay Kurasia and .. .. ..

This Series has thrown up many youngsters as pearls from the Ocean and topping the list would be - Young Indian opening batter Yashasvi Jaiswal,  the left-handed batter has scored 712  runs.   It took 16 innings for Yashasvi  to complete 1000 runs in Test cricket, the second-fastest for an Indian in the format. Vinod Kambli remains the quickest, having got there in only 14 innings.  However he is the fastest Opener to reach 1000  , bettering the record held by   Rohit Sharma: 17 innings.   Only  two batters in history have managed to score 700 or more runs in a Test series played between India and England. Former England skipper Graham Gooch achieved the feat in 1990,  in three Tests  when he amassed a total of 752 runs, and during the five-match series played in 2021–22, Joe Root scored 737 runs.  Most runs in the Series record is held by Donald Bradman 974 in 5 tests / 7 innings; Walter Hammond 905 in 5/9 and Sunil Manohar Gavaskar in 1971 debut series 774 in 4 tests / 8 innings.

 

Yashswi Jaiswal has been timing the ball sweetly and hitting sixers at will – he has thus far in his short career slammed 29 sixers.  The topper in Test as of now is Ben Stokes 128 in 101/183;  Brendon McCullum 107 in 101/176; Adam Gilchrist 100 in 96/137; Chris Gayle 98 in 103/182; Jacques Kallis 97 in 166/280 and Virender Sehwag 91 in 104/180. 

Behind Virender Sehwag the Indian list would read :  Rohit Sharma 81; Mahendra Singh Dhoni 78; Sachin Tendulkar 67; Ravindra Jadeja 64; Kapil Dev 61; Sourav Ganguly 57; Rishab Pant 55; Harbhajan Singh 42; Ajinkya Rahane 35; Murali Vijay 33,  Navjot singh Sidhu 32 – Yashaswi 29 and Mayank Agarwal 28.  Umesh Yadav has 24 sixers .. .. Ravi Ashwin and the team coach Rahul Dravid have hit 26 sixers in Tests !! 

Manoj Prabhakar was considered an all rounder and opened in some matches too – he scored 1858 ODI runs but not a single sixer, though he hit 4 of them in his Test Career.  The record in Tests (NO SIXERS IN Career ) is held by England's Jonathan Trott, whose 3835 runs did not include a single six. Vijay Manjrekar of India managed 3208 Test runs and New Zealand's Glenn Turner 2991, also without any sixes.

 
Interesting !
 
With regards – S Sampathkumar
9.3.2024