This article was first published 18 years ago

Dravid equals Gooch's record

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June 28, 2006 20:24 IST

- Warner Park in Basseterre, St. Kitts became the ninth ground to host a Test match in the Caribbean islands after Kensington Oval (Bridgetown, Barbados), Queen's Park Oval (Port-of-Spain, Trinidad), Bourda Oval (Georgetown, Guyana), Sabina Park (Kingston, Jamaica), Antigua Recreation Club (St John's, Antigua), Arnos Vale Ground (Arnos Vale, St Vincent), National Cricket Stadium (Grenada) and Beausejour Stadium (Gros Islet, St Lucia).

- Chris Gayle (83) completed his 4,000 runs when his score reached 7. He became the 15th West Indian batsman to do so. The left-hander was playing his 60th Test and 105th innings.

- Gayle's innings included five sixes. He had never hit more than three sixes in a single innings previously in his career.

- The opening partnership of 143 runs between Gayle and Daren Ganga is West Indies' second best for this wicket against India in the Caribbean after the 296-run partnership between Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes at St John's in 1982-83.

- Ganga (135) registered his first Test century against India and his third overall. This was also his career best score obliterating the 117 made against Australia at Port-of-Spain in 2002-03.

- Ramnaresh Sarwan (116) scored the ninth hundred of his Test career, his first in 11 Tests against India.

- Sarwan hit six consecutive boundaries in an over from India fast bowler Munaf Patel on the second day. This provided only the fifth instance in Test cricket history of a batsman hitting six boundaries in a single over. India's Sandeep Patil, New Zealand's Craig McMillan and West Indians Brian Lara and Chris Gayle are the other to do so.

- Sarwan, in fact, missed the opportunity to hit seven boundaries in one over. The sixth ball of that fateful over from Patel was a no-ball, which was promptly dispatched to boundary. But Sarwan failed to score off the seventh ball of the over bowled round the wicket by Patel for a change.

- Marlon Samuels (87) completed his 1,000 runs in Test cricket when his score reached 70. He was playing in his 22nd Test and 38th innings. Samuels became the 45th West Indian batsman to aggregate 1,000 runs in a Test career.

- West Indies' total of 581 is their 16th 500-plus total against India, the eighth time they have done it at home. Interestingly, West Indies have not won a single match in the last 10 years after scoring 500-plus runs in the first innings of a Test.

- Harbhajan Singh (5 for 147) claimed a five-wicket haul for only the third time in his career in an overseas Test. His other five-wicket hauls overseas are: 5 for 138 against West Indies at Kingston in 2001-02 and 5 for 115 against England at the Oval in 2002.

- Anil Kumble conceded 140 runs in West Indies' first innings without taking a wicket, which is the second worst performance of his Test career. He returned wicketless giving away 159 runs against Pakistan at Bangalore in 2004-05 and it remains his worst ever performance.

- India wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni did not concede a single bye in West Indies' total of 581 to register his best performance behind the stumps. The previous highest score against India in which Dhoni did not concede a bye was England's 300 at Mohali in March this year.

- West Indies' total of 581 is the third highest by a country against India without a single bye. Syed Kirmani did not concede any bye in Pakistan's total of 652 at Faisalabad in 1982-83 and Sameer Dighe kept without any blemish (as far as byes are concerned) at Colombo SSC in 2001 when Sri Lanka declared their only innings at 610 for six.

- West Indies innings included five scores of 80 or more in their first innings, only the fifth such occurrence in Test cricket.

- V V S Laxman (100) scored his tenth hundred in 76th Test and his third in 12 Tests against the West Indies.

- Brian Lara became the ninth West Indian captain not to enforce the follow-on despite having the chance to do so. Interestingly, this was the first time that the decision did not fetch West Indies a victory.

- This was the eighth time opponents did not enforce the follow-on on India despite being in a position to do so. India lost on all the previous seven occasions.

- The wicket of Chanderpaul in the second innings was Kumble's 200th on the foreign soil. He became only the second Indian (after Kapil Dev -- 215 wickets in 66 Tests) and 11th bowler in the world to aggregate 200 wickets in 'away' Tests. Kumble was playing his 53rd Test outside India. Incidentally, Shane Warne, with 389 wickets in 76 Tests, tops the list of bowlers with maximum wickets in 'away' Tests.

- When West Indies declared their second innings at 172 for six, it was the first time in last five years that they declared their second innings in a Test. The last such instance was against South Africa at Georgetown in 2000-01, 61 Tests ago!

- Virender Sehwag completed his 4,000 runs in Test cricket when his score reached 3 in the second innings to become the 11th Indian batsman to reach this milestone. By taking only 79 innings to do so, Sehwag also became the quickest amongst Indians to race to 4,000 run-mark ahead of Sunil Gavaskar (81), Rahul Dravid (84) and Sachin Tendulkar (86).

- The 109-run partnership between Wasim Jaffer and Virender Sehwag was only the ninth century partnership for the first wicket for India in the fourth innings of a match. The last one was against England at Ahmedabad in 2001-02 when S S Das and Deep Dasgupta added 119 runs.

- The 100-run partnership with Laxman in the second innings was the 63rd involving Rahul Dravid. With this Dravid equalled Australian Allan Border's tally. It needed Dravid 91 innings lesser than Border to come at par with him. One more century partnership and he will equal another Australian Steve Waugh's world record of most century partnerships.

- The catch to dismiss Laxman in the second innings was the 156th for Brian Lara, equalling Border's tally. Only Mark Waugh (187) and Mark Taylor (157) have taken more catches in the field than Lara.

- Dravid's second innings knock of 68 not out means that he has now scored at least a half-century in six consecutive Tests -- 71 vs England at Nagpur, 95 vs England at Mohali, 52 vs England at Mumbai, 62 vs West Indies at St. John's, 146 vs West Indies at Gros Islet….. and 68 not out in this Test. With this Dravid has equalled the Indian record shared by five other batsmen including Vijay Hazare, Chandu Borde, Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar (twice) and Sadagoppan Ramesh.

- Dravid has now moved to sixth place among the leading run-scorers in Test cricket, equalling England's Graham Gooch's tally of 8,900 runs. Now only Brian Lara (11,468 runs in 127 Tests), Allan Border (11,174 in 156), Steve Waugh (10,927 in 168), Sachin Tendulkar (10.469 in 132) and Sunil Gavaskar (10,122 in 125) are ahead of Dravid. Interestingly, Dravid needed only 103 Tests (and 174 innings) to equal Gooch's tally against his 118 Tests (and 215 innings).

- Ganga won his maiden Man of the Match award.

 

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