A Very Very Special Series!!!

“History shows that there are no invincible armies.” – Joseph Stalin.

Saurav Ganguly & his men underlined these words after a historic series win over Australia on March 22, 2001 at Chepauk. A week before this, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid walked out to bat at the Eden Gardens on a humid March morning. It was day 4 of the second test match and India were following on, still trailing Australia by 15 runs with the last recognized pair at the crease. One more wicket then and it would have been all over for India - the match and the series. But history was re-written that day and it marked one of the greatest come backs cricket has ever witnessed. 13 years down the lane, this series still remains one of my most favorite alongside the 2005 Ashes series in England and West Indies-Australia series of 1999 in the Caribbean. There are series which throw up lots of numbers, which is definitely a statistician’s delight but there is hardly any contest between bat and ball. But this was a series which had everything – from nerve wrecking contests in the middle to some amazing records being set and old records re-written. In this latest offering I will take you back to some of the stats and records during that series.

After being routed by 10 wickets within 3 days in the first test of the series at Mumbai, India came back to win the series 2-1. It was the 8^th instance of a side coming back to win the series after losing the first test of a 3 match series and a first time for India.

Winning Team	Opposition	Host Country	Year	Captain
England	Australia	Australia	1882/83	Ivo Bligh
England	Australia	England	1888	Allan Steel / WG Grace
South Africa	New Zealand	South Africa	1994/95	Hansie Cronje
Pakistan	Zimbabwe	Zimbabwe	1995	Saleem Malik
Sri Lanka	Pakistan	Pakistan	1995	Arjuna Ranatunga
Sri Lanka	New Zealand	Sri Lanka	1998	Arjuna Ranatunga
England	Sri Lanka	Sri Lanka	2001	Nasser Hussain
India	Australia	India	2001	Saurav Ganguly

# Allan Steel captained in the 1^st test at Lord’s which England lost by 61 runs. WG Grace captained in the subsequent tests, both which ended in innings victories for England.

# Arjuna Ranatunga is the only captain to do it twice.

# This has happened thrice since – South Africa against India and West Indies in 2006/07 and 2007/08 respectively; England against New Zealand in 2008.

# England’s victory in Sri Lanka in 2001 came on March 17, 2001 – a day before the start last test of the Ind - Aus series.

The chief architects - Laxman & Harbhajan after the later hitting the winning runs at Chepauk

Australia came to India with 15 consecutive test wins starting with the 10 wicket win against Zimbabwe at Harare in October 1999. They extended the streak to 16 with the 10 wicket win in the first test at Mumbai. Their 16 victories included 4 innings wins, 3 10-wicket wins and 3 by a margin of 150+ runs. They were leading by 274 runs after India folded out for 171 runs in the first innings at Kolkata before Laxman, Dravid, Harbhajan and Sachin (with the ball this time) scripted the mother of all come backs. India became the 3^rd team to win a test after following on. England were the winners on 2 previous occasions while Australia lost all the 3 times. Later on in 2008 it was again India who halted Ricky Ponting’s Australia’s unbeaten run of 16 tests at WACA.

Most consecutive test victories

Team	Wins	From	To
Australia	16	14 Oct 1999	27 Feb 2001
Australia	16	26 Dec 2005	02 Jan 2008
West Indies	11	30 Mar 1984	07 Dec 1984
Sri Lanka	9	29 Aug 2001	06 Mar 2002
South Africa	9	15 Mar 2002	01 May 2003

Teams winning after following-on

Team	Opposition	Venue	Year	Margin	Captain
Eng	Aus	SCG	1894	10 runs	Andrew Stoddart
Eng	Aus	Headingley	1981	18 runs	Mike Brearley
Ind	Aus	Kolkata	2001	171 runs	Saurav Ganguly

# The Eng - Aus test at SCG in 1894 was the first test to go into the sixth day.

# Peter Willey was a part of the England team which beat Australia in 1981 at Headingley and he stood as umpire in the Kolkata test match of 2001.

The Very Very Special partnership

VVS Laxman made his test debut for India 5 summers ago in 1996. By the time Kolkata test started he had played 20 tests and averaged a mere 27.06 with a solitary hundred. Rahul Dravid was by then the next big super star in Indian batting line up after Tendulkar. But in 8 tests against Australia till then he averaged 28.85 with a strike rate of 32.58 and was yet to reach the 3 figure mark. Shane Warne had the better of him in 6 times in 14 exchanges. But destiny choose them as heroes on that day - 14 March 2001. The came together when India were still adrift of Aussie lead by 42 runs. Laxman came in at Dravid’s usual #3 position after top scoring in first innings and being the last man dismissed. It was just the 3^rd innings for Laxman at #3, his earlier scores being 41 & 0 at Adelaide. They were separated after 104.1 overs and by then India were ahead by 334 runs. All Australians rolled their arm over except their captain and the wicket keeper.  It’s the third most number of bowlers used by Australia in an innings.

Laxman & Dravid  - a partnership that marked the greatest turn around in history

Double centuries while following-on in tests

Player	Team	Opposition	Venue	Year	Score	Result
Hanif Mohammed	Pak	WI	Bridgetown	1958	337	Draw
Dilip Sardesai	Ind	NZ	Mumbai (BS)	1965	200	Draw
Saleem Malik	Pak	Aus	Rawalpindi	1994	237	Draw
Gary Kirsten	SA	Eng	Durban	1999	275	Draw
Andy Flower	Zimb	Ind	Nagpur	2000	232*	Draw
VVS Laxman	Ind	Aus	Kolkata	2001	281	Won by 171 runs

# Darren Bravo is the only one to do it after Laxman. Bravo made 218 against NZ at Dunedin in Dec 2013.

# Hanif Mohammed's 337 was the first triple century for Pakistan.

# Saleem Malik was the captain of the Pakistan side when he scored 237 against Aus.

# Gary Kirsten’s 275 was the then highest individual score for SA in tests.

# Hanif Mohammed’s innings lasted 970 minutes & Kirsten’s 878 minutes. These are the two longest innings in terms of minutes batted in test cricket history.

Laxman’s 281 was the highest score by an Indian in tests. It was also the first instance of an Indian batsman scoring 250+ runs in an innings in tests. He could have been just the second Asian player to score a triple century after Hanif Mohammed had he scored 19 more runs.

Progressive record holders for highest test score by Indians

Player	Score	Opposition	Venue	Day	Position
L Amar Singh	51	Eng	Lord’s	28 Jun 1932	9
Lala Amarnath	118	Eng	Mumbai (Gym)	17 Dec 1933	3
Vijay Merchant	128	Eng	The Oval	17 Aug 1946	1
Vijay Hazare	145	Aus	Adelaide	27 Jan 1948	4
Vijay Merchant	154	Eng	Delhi	03 Nov 1951	1
Vijay Hazare	164*	Eng	Delhi	03 Nov 1951	4
Vinoo Mankad	184	Eng	Lord’s	21 Jun 1952	1
Polly Umrigar	223	NZ	Hyderabad	19 Nov 1955	3
Vinoo Mankad	231	NZ	Madras (CS)	06 Jan 1956	1
Sunil Gavaskar	236*	WI	Chennai (MAC)	27 Dec 1983	4
VVS Laxman	281	Aus	Kolkata	13 Mar 2001	3

# Lala Amarnath scored the first century for India in only its second test and it was the first test to be played in India.

# Vijay Hazare scored a century in the first innings (116) of the test in which he scored 145 and thereby became the first Indian to do so in tests.

# Vijay Merchant’s 154 & Vijay Hazare’s 164* came in the same innings.

# Vinoo Mankad equalled Polly Umrigar’s 223 in the very next test at Mumbai (BS).

# Vinoo Mankad’s 231 was involved in a then record opening stand of 413 with Pankaj Roy.

# The current record holder for India is Virender Sehwag - 319 vs South Africa in Chennai, 2008. He now holds the first 3 positions in highest test scores for India with 2 triple centuries.

The partnership of 376 between Laxman and Dravid was the third highest for the 5^th wicket or below after Bradman - Barnes 405 vs England at SCG, 1946 and Steve Waugh - Blewett 385 vs SA at Johannesbug, 1997.  It was also the third highest stand for India in tests now after Vinoo Mankad - Pankaj Roy 413 vs NZ, Hyderabad, 1955 and Dravid - Sehwag 410 vs Pak, 2006. The pair batted through the whole day and was the third Indian pair to do so in tests.

Indians batting throughout the day

Player 1	Player 2	Opposition	Venue	Day	Day of test
Vinoo Mankad	Pankaj Roy	NZ	Madras (CS)	06 Jan 1956	1
GR Viswanath	Yashpal Sharma	Eng	Chennai (MAC)	14 Jan 1982	2
VVS Laxman	Rahul Dravid	Aus	Kolkata	14 Mar 2001	4

VVS Laxman also became the first Indian batsman to amass 500 runs in a 3-test series. He scored 503 runs in the series at an average of 83.83 with one hundred and 3 fifties. Virender Sehwag and Saurav Ganguly went on to emulate him in future. However even this performance was not enough to win him the coveted Man of the Series award. It went to the 20-year old Jalandhar boy Harbhajan Singh.

Rajesh Chauhan was India’s first choice off spinner to partner Anil Kumble in the 1990s. Harbhajan made his debut against Australia in 1998 at Bangalore. And Chauhan never played a test for India later. Coming into the series with strong backing by skipper Ganguly, he had 21 wickets to his name in 8 tests. India were already without Kumble and loss of Javagal Srinath after first test aggravated their pains. Harbhajan’s figures in Mumbai were 4/121 & 0/11. The last two tests of the series saw his growth from a pedestrian finger spinner to a world class strike bowler for India. He took 28 wickets in the next 2 tests and his tally of 32 wickets in a 3-test series is the 4^th highest ever.

Most wickets in a 3-test series

Player	vs	Host	Wkts	Avg	BBI	BBM	Year
George Lohman	SA	SA	35	5.80	9/28	15/45	1896
Sid Barnes	SA	Eng	34	8.29	8/29	13/57	1912
Richard Hadlee	Aus	Aus	33	12.15	9/52	15/123	1985
Harbhajan Singh	Aus	Ind	32	17.03	8/84	15/217	2001
M MUralitharan	Zimb	SL	30	9.80	9/51	13/115	2001
Abdul Qadir	Eng	Pak	30	14.56	9/56	13/101	1987

# Sid Barnes 34 wickets came against England in the tri series of 1912. He went on to play 3 more tests against Australia but each were considered seperate series.

In Australia’s first innings at Kolkata, Harbhajan became the Indian bowler to take a hat-trick in test cricket. His victims were Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Shane Warne. Ponting was scalped by Harbhajan for 5 times in the series. Ponting’s tally of 17 runs in 5 innings is the third worst for a top order player (1 - 7) in a 3 test series with a minimum of 5 innings batted. In the last innings of the series at Chennai, he was caught behind but given not out and dropped by the bowler himself once yet he couldn’t make it count. Such worse time he had in India that summer. However in the return series 2 years later he scored back to back double centuries in Adelaide and Melbourne. Harbhajan’s tally of 15 wickets in the Chennai test is the second most by an Indian bowler in tests after Narendra Hirwani’s figures of 16/136 in his debut test at the same venue in 1988. 13 years down his career, his second innings haul of 8/84 at Chennai still remains his best in a test innings.

Harbhajan gets his man. Again!!!

In the last test at Chennai, Steve Waugh went past Graham Gooch’s tally of 8900 runs to become the third highest run getter in tests after Sunil Gavaskar and Allan Border, the men whom the India Australia test series is named after since 1996. He was dismissed ‘Handled the ball’ to Harbhajan in this innings.

Handled the ball dismissals in test cricket

Player	Team	Bowler	Team	Venue	Date	Score	Balls
Russell Endean	SA	Jim Laker	Eng	Cape Town	05 Jan 1957	3	-
Andrew Hilditch	Aus	Sarfraz Nawaz	Pak	Perth	29 Mar 1979	29	85
Mohsin Khan	Pak	Geoff Lawson	Aus	Karachi	23 Sep 1982	58	138
D Haynes	WI	Kapil Dev	Ind	Mumbai (WS)	27 Nov 1983	55	193
Graham Gooch	Eng	Merv Hughes	Aus	Manchester	07 Jun 1993	133	247
Steve Waugh	Aus	Harbhajan Singh	Ind	Chennai	19 Mar 2001	47	150

# Andrew Hilditch is the only non – striking batsman to be given out handling the ball.

# Michael Vaughn of England in the only other batsman to be dismissed in the same way after Steve Waugh. It happened later in the year against India at Bangalore. He was batting on 64 off 238 balls. The bowler was Sarandeep Singh.

# Mohinder Amarnath & Daryll Cullinan are the batsmen dismissed in the same way in ODIs.

# The incident happened twice in Aus – Pak tests.

Adam Gilchrist made a breath taking start to the series at Mumbai with an 84 -ball century which made several records. He came into bat at 99/5 and as so often he does he blew the opposition away with his scintillating stroke play. It was so dominant that Rahul Dravid later remarked it was the greatest century by any foreigner on Indian soil.

Fastest centuries against India (in less than 100 balls)

Player	Team	Balls to 100	Final Score	Venue	Date
Adam Gilchrist	Aus	84	122	Mumbai (WS)	28 Feb 2001
Zaheer Abbas	Pak	94	168	Faisalabad	04 Jan 1983
Ian Smith	NZ	95	173	Auckland	22 Feb 1990
Graham Gooch	Eng	95	123	Lord’s	30 Jul 1990

# Current record for fastest test century against India is held by David Warner - off 69 balls at Perth in 2011.

# Gilchrist’s hundred is the third fastest against India in terms on minutes batted after Wally Hammond (100 mins) & Clive Lloyd (102 mins).

# Gilchrist’s 100 was the third fastest in India following Kapil Dev & Mohad. Azharuddin, both of whom scored a century off 69 balls each.

# It was the fastest 100 by a wicket keeper in tests breaking Junior Murray’s 88 ball century against the Kiwis at Wellington in 1994/95 season.

* All stats of Adam Gilchrist fastest 100 updated only till March 01, 2001.

Another future star who emerged from the series was Australian opener Matthew Hayden. Having made a forgettable debut against South Africa at Cape Town in 1994, he turned a corner in his career in this series. His aggregate of 549 runs in the series was the most by any Australian in a 3-test series till Michael Clarke scored 576 runs against the touring South Africans in the 2012/13 season. However it is still the most by an Aussie opener in a 3 test series, 6 runs ahead of David Warner’s exploits in South Africa earlier this year. It is also the most runs in a test series by an Australian away from home.

Two players reached their 25^th test centuries in the same series - Steve Waugh in Kolkata and Sachin Tendulkar in Chennai. They were the 5^th and 6^th players to reach there respectively. Sachin required just 130 innings to reach the land mark which is second only to the impeccable Bradman, who reached there in just 68 innings. On the other hand Steve Waugh needed 212 innings to reach the same land mark which was the slowest then. Currently Shivnarine Chanderpaul sits with the record of most innings to reach 25 test centuries with 235 innings under his name. At 27 years & 330 days, Sachin was the first to reach there before the age of 30. Later he was joined by Alistair Cook (28 years & 153 days).

It was a series which saw many Indian players for the last time. One of the best wicket keepers India has ever produced, Nayan Mongia, made his final appearance in the Kolkata test. It was also the last test for India’s premier left arm spinner of the 1990s Venkatapathy Raju, popularly known as “Muscles”. Nilesh Kulkarni, the Mumbai slow left arm bowler, who took a wicket with his first ball in tests, played his last test in Chennai.

The series had its fair share of heated moments also.

Image Courtesy : www.cricinfo.com

TAILENDER

"I even learned English by the end of that series. You know how much the Australians like to talk on the field." 

Harbhajan Singh took away more than just 32 wickets from the home series against Australia in 2000-01