Of captains and double hundreds

Virat Kohli... the Indian skipper now has six double hundreds, the most by any Test captain.

6

The maximum scores of 200+ by Test captains. Virat Kohli (243) in New Delhi became the first captain in Test history to make this many 200+ scores. He surpassed the tally of Brian Lara (West Indies), whose five 200+ scores include his 400 against England at St. John’s in April 2004.

For the record, Kohli reached the mark in just 50 innings. Lara took 83 innings to register his fifth score of 200+ as captain. While it took Lara nearly seven and a half years to reach this landmark, it took Kohli less than 17 months to better it.

The table below provides the details of captains with four or more 200+ scores in Test cricket.

Most scores of 200+ as Test captain

200s	inns	Captain	For	First 200	Final 200	Scores of 200+ as Test captain
6	50	V. Kohli	Ind	22 Jul 2016	2 Dec 2017	200	211	235	204	213	243
5	85	B. Lara	WI	14 Mar 1999	22 Nov 2006	213	209	202	400*	216
4	38	D. Bradman	Aus	5 Jan 1937	23 Jan 1948	270	212	234	201
4	86	Mi. Clarke	Aus	4 Jan 2012	22 Nov 2012	329*	210	259*	230
4	193	G. Smith	SA	26 Jul 2003	24 Oct 2013	277	259	232	234

+current player

3

The number of times Indian batsmen managed to register four 100+ scores in the same innings of a Test. The Nagpur Test was the latest. For the record, since June 1938, there have been 22 instances of teams registering four or more centuries in the same innings of a Test. Of these, on two occasions there have been five centuries in the same innings.

The table below has the details of the three instances when Indian batsmen posted four 100+ scores in the same innings of a Test.

Four individual centuries in same Test innings for India

Batsmen and scores	Against	Venue	Month, Year	Result (won by)
Dinesh Karthik 129, Wasim Jaffer 138, Rahul Dravid 129, Sachin Tendulkar 122*	Bangladesh	Mirpur	May 2007	inns & 239 runs
Virender Sehwag 165, Sachin Tendulkar 106, VVS Laxman 143*, MS Dhoni 132*	South Africa	Kolkata	Feb 2010	inns & 57 runs
M Vijay 128, Cheteshwar Pujara 143, Virat Kohli 213, Rohit Sharma 102*	Sri Lanka	Nagpur	Nov 2017	inns & 239 runs

Notes:

*The victories by inns & 239 runs at Mirpur and Nagpur are India’s biggest in Test cricket.

*The Mirpur Test provided the only instance in Test cricket, when batsmen in batting positions 1, 2, 3 & 4 made 100+ scores in same Test innings.

54

The number of Test matches taken by India’s Ravichandran Ashwin to claim his 300th wicket, during the Nagpur Test against Sri Lanka. This is now the quickest by any bowler in terms of Tests in cricket history! Ashwin broke the previous record held by Australia’s Dennis Lillee, who, by a strange coincidence, achieved the landmark exactly on the same day as Ashwin did, but 36 years ago, on November 27, 1981.

The details are given below:

Fewest Tests taken to reach 300 wickets

Tests	Inns	S/R	Bowler	For	Achieved on	Years taken	Age
54	101	52.12	R. Ashwin	India	27 Nov 2017	6y-22d	31y-71d
56	107	49.64	D. Lillee	Australia	27 Nov 1981	10y-9m-30d	32y-132d
58	91	61.66	M. Muralitharan	Sri Lanka	30 Dec 2000	8y-4m-3d	28y-257d
61	110	51.43	R. Hadlee	New Zealand	21 Feb 1986	13y-20d	34y-233d
61	114	45.85	M. Marshall	West Indies	29 Dec 1988	10y-15d	30y-255d
61	113	41.93	D. Steyn	South Africa	2 Jan 2013	8y-17d	29y-189d

S/R is the number of balls taken to claim each wicket.

To claim 300 Test wicket….

In fewest Tests:	54	R. Ashwin (Ind)
In fewest innings:	91	M. Muralitharan (SL)
In fewest balls:	12564	Waqar Younis (Pak)
Best bowling average:	20.66	Shaun Pollock (SAf)
Best bowling economy (r/o):	1.98	L. Gibbs (WI)
Shortest time taken:	2196 days (6y-4d)	S. Warne (Aus)
Youngest:	28y-1d	by Kapil Dev (Ind)

 

100

The number of Test matches lost by Sri Lanka. In Nagpur, they became the eighth Test team to reach this dubious landmark.

Team records after their 100 Test loss

Team	Test debut	100th defeat	Against	Venue	Tests	Won	Lost	Draw/Tie	%loss
England	15 Mar 1877	10 Dec 1958	Australia	Brisbane	347	139	100	108	28.82
Australia	15 Mar 1877	12 Jan 1978	India	Sydney	374	170	100	103/1	26.74
South Africa	12 Mar 1889	8 Sep 2003	England	The Oval	279	90	100	89	35.84
West Indies	23 Jun 1928	29 Dec 2000	Australia	Melbourne	368	138	100	129/1	27.17
New Zealand	10 Jan 1930	12 Dec 1995	Pakistan	Christchurch	241	33	100	108	41.49
India	25 Jun 1932	28 Dec 1996	South Africa	Durban	303	57	100	145/1	33.00
Pakistan	16 Oct 1952	15 May 2011	West Indies	Providence	357	107	100	150	28.97
Sri Lanka	17 Feb 1982	28 Nov 2017	India	Nagpur	266	84	100	82	37.59

 

THIS WEEK IN 1903 14 December England’s Reg ‘Tip’ Foster scores 287 against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground. It still remains the highest score by a debutant in Test cricket history! Foster went on to play in seven more Tests but could manage just one score of 50-plus — a 51 in the final match and penultimate innings of his Test career, at The Oval, against South Africa in August 1907.

 

QUERIES CORNER Is this the first time that Kerala has reached the knock-out stage of the Ranji Trophy? — P. Sunil, Kottayam This, in fact, is the second occasion that Kerala have managed to reach the knock-out stage of the Ranji Trophy. Earlier, in the 1994-95 season, Kerala made it to the knock-out stage when they finished second in the South Zone League. They, however, lost to Uttar Pradesh in the pre-quarterfinals on first innings lead. It is also worth mentioning here that a couple of seasons later, in 1996-97, Kerala topped the South Zone League to reach the Super League stage, but failed to make it to the knock-outs from there. Therefore, this is the second time that Kerala are in the knock-outs, but their first in the quarterfinal stage of the Ranji Trophy. Recently Virat Kohli made six double centuries in Tests. Who are the other Indian captains to score double centuries? — Ajay Kumar, Mumbai Interestingly, from July 22, 2016, Virat Kohli has scored six 200-plus scores as India captain in under 17 months. Before that, since 1932 (in 84 years), only four Indian captains have posted 200+ scores: Nawab of Pataudi Jr. 203* in 1964; Sunil Gavaskar 205 in 1978; Sachin Tendulkar 217 in 1999; and M. S. Dhoni 224 in 2013. Could you please provide the number of centuries scored in this year’s Ranji Trophy? And also the number of triple centuries and double centuries. — Srihari Rao, Visakhapatnam When you say this year, I presume you mean this season. So far this season, after Round 7 and before the start of the knock-out stage, in the 82 Ranji Trophy matches played (excluding the two washed-out games), we have seen 164 centuries. The summary of all the 100+ scores is given below: 300+ scores: 3 200s (200 to 299): 9 100s (100 to 199): 152 (includes 26 scores between 150 to 199). Mayank Agarwal became the first batsman from Karnataka to score four centuries in successive Ranji Trophy matches when he made a hundred against Railways. How many other players have achieved this feat in the Ranji Trophy? — G. Harish, Bengaluru Four in four has been achieved by several others. However, Agarwal is still way behind Rusi Modi’s record of seven centuries in successive Ranji Trophy matches, from December 1943 to March 1945. Modi, in fact, scored his seven centuries in a span of nine innings! Note: All figures above are updated as on December 3, 2017. Readers may send in their queries to sportstar@thehindu.co.in