2nd Test, India v Zimbabwe, Statistical Highlights

• It was the 1549th Test match in cricket history.
• It was India’s 341st and Zimbabwe’s 52nd Test match – seventh betweenthese two sides.
• It was the 28th Test match on Zimbabwean soilfourth between thesetwo sides.
• Umpire Ian Robinson was officiating in his 25th Test match. He becamefirst Zimbabwean and 31st umpire in Test annals to reach thislandmark. The other umpire Asoka de Silva was standing in his thirdTest.
• Hemang Badani and Travis Friend became the 237th and 51st player torepresent India and Zimbabwe respectively. By an odd coincidence boththese players have appeared in 13 matches each for their respectivesides.
• Grant Flower was playing his 50th Test match. He became thirdZimbabwean after brother Andy and Alistair Campbell (52) and 171stplayer in all to have reached this milestone.
• Rahul Dravid on 25 in first innings became the highest run-scoreragainst Zimbabwe in Tests moving ahead of New Zealander Nathan Astlewho has an aggregate of 662 runs from 9 Tests and 15 innings. At theend of this match Dravid has scored 732 runs from five Tests and 8innings. Tendulkar with 664 runs from 7 Tests and 11 innings has movedto second place behind Dravid.
• Andy Blignaut’s three catches in first innings equalled the bestperformance by a Zimbabwean in the field in an innings against India.Guy Whittall had also taken three catches in the first innings of theBulawayo Test just a week ago.
• Andy Flower completed his 1000 Test runs against India when his scorereached 18 in first innings. He became first Zimbabwean and 22ndbatsman in all to have accomplished this feat. At the end of thismatch Andy has taken his aggregate to 1043 runs from 14 innings ofseven Tests against India. Flower The accompanying table lists thebatsman with 1000 runs in a career against India. It might be notedthat Andy’s average of 128.37 is the highest among this elite band.

Batsmen with a career aggregate of 1000 runs against India :

• The remarkable thing about Andy’s feat is that he needed only sevenTests to complete his 1000 runs.Flower now shares the record ofcompleting 1000 runs in a career against India in least Test matcheswith West Indian Everton Weekes. Weekes, however, is the fastest interms of innings as he accomplished this feat in four innings lesserthan Andy.
• Andy is now jointly placed second among the batsmen reaching 1000 runsin a career against a particular country in least matches alongwithWest Indian Everton Weekes, Australia’s Don Bradman and Doug Walterswith West Indian Viv Richards heading the table. Richards took onlysix Tests to achieve a runaggregate of 1000 against England. AnotherWest Indian Weekes holds the world record of being the fastest inleast innings as he took only nine inning to complete his 1000 runsagainst India. The details:

Fastest to complete 1000 test runs against a specific country :

• Heath Streak,on 11 in first innings,completed his 1000 runs in 40thTest. He became seventh Zimbabwean and 363rd batsman in Test annals toreach this landmark. The batsman with a career aggregate of 1000 runsfor Zimbabwe are :Andy Flower (3908 runs in 52 Tests), Grant Flower(2812 runs in 50 Tests), Alistair Campbell (2307 runs in 52 Tests),GuyWhittall (2056 runs in 41 Tests), Dave Houghton (1464 runs in 22Tests),Murray Goodwin (1414 runs in 19 Tests) and Heath Streak (1037runs in 40 Tests).
• With this, Streak also completed the coveted double of 1000 runs and100 wickets, becoming the first Zimbabwean and 36th allrounder to doso.
• Grant Flower,on 10 in first innings, became only the second batsmanafter brother Andy to reach 1000 runs at Harare Sports Club Ground. Atthe end of this Test,Grant has an aggregate of 1079 runs from 17 Testsafter Andy’s 1098 runs from 18 Tests.
• Harbhajan Singh and Ashish Nehra by returning the figures of four for71 and four for 72 achieved the two best figures by an Indian bowlerin Zimbabwe. Anil Kumble had figures of four for 87 at this same venuein 1998-99.
• Sachin Tendulkar,on 19 in second innings,became the second highestrun-getter for India in Tests. He surpassed Dilip Vengsarkar’s tallyof 6868 runs from 116 matches and 185 innings. Tendulkar overhauledVengsarkar’s aggregate in 32 Tests and 50 innings lesser. Now onlySunil Gavaskar with 10122 runs in 125 Tests and 214 innings is aheadof Tendulkar. Tendulkar,with 6919 runs at the end of this Test,isplaced 23rd in the list of leading Test batsmen.It is interesting tonote that Tendulkar’s average of 57.18 is second only to Don Bradman’s99.94.
• Tendulkar now has 53 scores of fifty plus on this name including 25hundreds which takes him past Vengsarkar who has 52 such scores (17hundreds and 35 fifties) to his credit. Only Gavaskar has more fiftyplus scores 79 (34+45) among Indian batsmen.
• Tendulkar now has aggregated 2004 runs in 25 Tests (ave 40.08) in thematches lost by India . He became second Indian after Sunil Gavaskar(2314 runs in 34 Tests) and 11th batsman in all to aggregate 2000 runsin the `lost’ matches. For the record Australia’s Allan Border has themaximum run aggregate of 2771 runs (ave.33.39) in 46 Tests lost byAustralia. The accompanying tables have details.

Most runs in `lost’ matches

• The duck in second innings was eighth for Ajit Agarkar in his tenthTest and 16th innings. Agarkar’s duck frequency of 50 % is the highestin Test cricket by a batsman aggregating atleast five ducks in acareer. The details :

Highest duck percentage in a career(Min 5 ducks)

• Ashish Nehra became 27th Indian to bag a Test match pair (i.e. duck inboth innings) on 36th occasion. He also achieved the dubiousdistinction of becoming the first Indian to suffer this ignominyagainst Zimbabwe. The other batsmen to do so against Zimbabwe arePakistan’s Manzoor Elahi (1994-95) and Mushtaq Ahmed (1997-98),WestIndian Adrian Griffith (1999-00) and Bangladesh’s Manjural Islam andMohammad Sharif (2000-01).
• Blignaut (5-74) became the third Zimbabwean to take a five wicket haulagainst India. Interestingly all three have performed this feat thissame ground. John Traicos (5-86) in 1992-93 and Henry Olonga (5-70)are the others to do so.
• Javagal Srinath now has taken 192 wickets in 52 Tests which puts himahead of Erapally Prasanna who had 189 wickets from 49 Tests to hiscredit. Now only Kapil Dev (434 wickets in 131 Tests), Anil Kumble(276 in 61), Bishan Singh Bedi (266 in 67) and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar(242 in 58) are ahead of Srinath for India.
• With the series tied at 1-1,India now has still not won a Test seriesoutside the sub-continent since 1986 when it defeated England by 2-0margin.
• The win was Zimbabwe’s sixth in 52 matches. Interestingly Zimbabwe hasnow beaten three neighbouring countries India, Pakistan and Bangladeshon two occasions each.
• The defeat was India’s 71st in 159th Test on foreign soil and secondin four Tests in Zimbabwe.
• At the end of this series :
• India’s overall Test record :played 341,won 66,lost 114,drawn 160 andtied one.
• Zimbabwe’s overall Test record:played 52,won 6,lost 26 and drawn 20.
• Saurav Ganguly’s captaincy record :played 8,won 5,lost 2 and drawnone.
• Heath Streak’s captaincy record :played 9,won 3,lost 4 and drawn 2.