Tendulkar among elite five

By Mohandas Menon

** Sachin Tendulkar (126) recorded the 25th Test hundred of his career in his 82nd match. He and Australian captain Steve Waugh are now fifth on the all-time list. Only India's Sunil Gavaskar (34), Australians Don Bradman (29) and Allan Border (27), and West Indies' Gary Sobers (26) have scored more hundreds than Waugh and Tendulkar in Test history.

** This was Tendulkar's fourth hundred at this ground in five matches and seven innings. He now has the maximum Test hundreds by any batsman at Chepauk, going past Gavaskar's tally of three hundreds.

** It was his 12th home hundred in 37 matches and he also has 13 away hundreds in 45 matches.

** Tendulkar, meanwhile, made the 48th first-class hundred of his career in 168 matches. Among the Indians, only Gavaskar (81), Vijay Hazare (60), Dilip Vengsarkar (55), Mohammad Azharuddin (51) and Polly Umrigar (49) have more centuries than Tendulkar.

** Tendulkar now has an aggregate of 638 runs while averaging 127.60 runs per innings at Chepauk, with four hundreds!

** Rahul Dravid, when on 78, during his innings of 81, became the 10th batsman (all from India) to aggregate 2000 runs on Indian soil. He now has 2003 runs in 23 matches. Gavaskar has the maximum aggregate of 5067 runs in 65 matches.

** After being involved in a huge partnership of 376 runs for the fifth wicket with V.V.S. Laxman in the second innings in Kolkata, Rahul Dravid had another stand of 169 runs for the same wicket with Tendulkar. This provided the fourth instance in Indian Test history when two successive partnerships of over 100 runs were registered for the fifth wicket.

** It was also, by far, the highest partnership for the fifth wicket at this ground, obliterating the previous best of 118 by India's Tendulkar and Pravin Amre against England in February 1993. However, Tendulkar and Dravid failed to better the best- ever for this wicket in Chennai, which is still the 177 runs by Indians Polly Umrigar and Chandu Borde against Pakistan in January 1961 - at the now defunct Corporation Stadium.

** Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly has not scored a hundred since his 125 against New Zealand at Ahmedabad in October 1999. Since then, in 10 matches and 20 innings, he has failed to reach the three-figure mark and his highest has been the 84 against minnow Bangladesh at Dhaka in November last year.

** Shane Warne's wicket of Dighe was the 376th of his Test career in 87 matches. This places him in the joint-seventh position among all-time Test bowlers after West Indian Courtney Walsh (500), Indian Kapil Dev (434), New Zealand's Richard Hadlee (431), Pakistani Wasim Akram (409), West Indies' Curtly Ambrose (405) and England's Ian Botham (383). Warne now has the same number of wickets as former West Indian fast bowler, the late Malcolm Marshall.

** Interestingly, Warne now has an equal number of wickets home and away - 188 each.

** Off-spinner Colin Miller's two wickets in the penultimate over of the day saved him the ignominy of conceding the maximum runs (151) by an Australian bowler without capturing a wicket in a Test innings. His teammate Warne (0-147) still holds this dubious record - against India at Kolkata in March 1998.

** The 19 byes conceded by Adam Gilchrist was the maximum by an Australian 'keeper against India. The previous `worst' performance in this category was the 18 each - Don Tallon at Adelaide in January 1948 and Ian Healy at the same venue in March 1998. In fact, it was the worst performance by an Aussie 'keeper since March 1973 when Rodney Marsh conceded 19 byes against West Indies at Port of Spain.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Sachin breaks Australian hearts
Next     : South Africa recovers well