The Hindu : Dravid's innings, a statistician's delight

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 10, 2002

Sport

Sport - Cricket

Dravid's innings, a statistician's delight

By Mohandas Menon

** The 113-run stand between Rahul Dravid and V.V.S. Laxman was the best for the fifth wicket for India at The Oval, eclipsing the 63 between Vijay Merchant and Rusi Modi in the 1946 series.

** Dravid's 217 was his career-best score, bettering his unbeaten 200 against Zimbabwe in New Delhi in November 2000. It was also his highest in an away-Test, the earlier being 190 against New Zealand in Hamilton in 1999.

** Dravid, who became the sixth batsman to score India's seventh double hundred in a Test abroad (Sunil Gavaskar has done it twice), missed the record score by an Indian overseas — 221 by Gavaskar, against England at The Oval, in September 1979.

** Dravid took his series aggregate to 602 in six innings, making him the third Indian to accumulate 600-plus runs in a series. The others are Gavaskar (twice) — 774 (4 Tests, 8 innings, avg. 154.80 versus the West Indies, 1971) and 732 (6 Tests, 9 innings, avg. 91.50 v WI in India in 1978-79) and Dilip Sardesai (5 Tests, 8 innings, avg. 80.25 v WI, 1971).

** Dravid now has the maximum runs by an Indian in a series against England, surpassing Vijay Manjrekar's 586 in 5 Tests and 8 innings, (avg. 83.71) during the 1961-62 home series against Ted Dexter's Englishmen. Dravid also got past Gavaskar's 542 runs (4 matches, 7 innings, avg. 77.43) during the 1979 England tour.

** Dravid, in the course of his 632-minute vigil at the crease, became the sixth Indian batsman (the seventh time) to bat for more than 10 hours in an innings. Dravid has batted for 1864 mins (31 hours and 4 mins) in this series.

** The run-out dismissal of Dravid after making a double hundred was Test cricket's only sixth such instance. West Indies' Brain Lara (277 v Australia in Sydney, 1992-93) and Conrad Hunte (260 v Pakistan in Kingston, 1957-58) and India's Sanjay Manjrekar (218 v Pakistan in Lahore, 1989-90) are the other batsmen to get out in this fashion.

** Interestingly, Dravid's run out was the 100th at this venue since the first victim — England's Fred Morley against Australia on September 7, 1880, the first-ever match at this venue.

** During the course of his unbeaten 47, Michael Vaughan became the second Englishman to make 600-plus runs in a series against India. Graham Gooch had made 752 runs (avg. 125.33) in three matches and six innings during the 1990 home series. Vaughan now has 615 runs.

** Vaughan has made 900 runs this summer in seven matches against Sri Lanka and India. Only England's Graham Gooch (1058 in six Tests against New Zealand and India in 1990) and Australia's Don Bradman (974 in five Tests in 1930) have made more Test runs during an English summer.

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