Mumbai, Nov 25: Day 3 of the Mumbai Test turned out to be quite critical for England’s fortunes. After getting past the Indian first innings score and setting up a lead of 86 runs, the visitors unleashed their own brand of top-class spin bowling to leave the hosts struggling at 117/7 at stumps. While Monty Panesar, who claimed his second fiver of the match, led England’s charge with the ball, it was Kevin Pietersen’s 186 and skipper Alastair Cook’s brilliant 122 that initially titled the match in England’s favour.
Here are some interesting stats that unfolded during a very absorbing day of Test cricket:
For only the third time in Test cricket history, four Tests were being played on same day around the globe: Australia-South Africa at Adelaide, India-England at Mumbai, Bangladesh-West Indies at Khulna and Sri Lanka-New Zealand at Colombo (PSS). The other two occasions when four teams were playing on the same day came on March 21, 1998 and March 11, 2001.
Alastair Cook (122) made his 22nd Test hundred – his fourth against India.
Cook’s hundred brought him on par with Wally Hammond, Colin Cowdrey and Geoff Boycott among England batsmen with most (22) Test hundreds. Kevin Pietersen also joined them a little while later.
Cook became the first captain ever to score a hundred in each of his first four Tests. He had got hundreds in back-to-back matches against Bangladesh in 2009-10 and he has now got two in two games against India. (India’s Sunil Gavaskar also had four hundreds in his first four Tests as captain, but not one in each of the four matches. After scoring hundreds in his first two Tests, he got a duck in his third Test and then scored hundreds in both innings of his next Test to make it four in four).
Kevin Pietersen (186) scored his 22nd Test hundred – his sixth in 14 Tests against India. He now holds the record of scoring most hundreds for England against India, moving ahead of Ian Botham and Graham Gooch, who have five hundreds each against India.
Pietersen’s innings is the highest for England in a Test at Wankhede, beating Graeme Hick’s 178 in 1992-93. It is also the third highest by an England batsman on Indian soil, after Mike Gatting’s 207 and Graeme Fowler’s 201, both at Chennai in 1984-85.
This was the 10th time Pietersen made a score of 150 or more. With this he equalled Wally Hammond and Len Hutton’s record of most 150s for England. Incidentally Sachin Tendulkar holds the Test record of most 150s with 20 such scores.
Pietersen has now taken his run-tally to 1,448 against India. Only one batsman – Graham Gooch (1725) – has aggregated more runs than him for England vs India.
The third wicket partnership of 206 runs between Cook and Pietersen is a new record for this wicket at Mumbai Wankhede. The pair obliterated the previous record stand of 194 between Vinod Kambli and Sachin Tendulkar against England in 1992-93.
Pragyan Ojha (5/143) claimed his fifth five-wicket haul in Test cricket. He did not have any in his first 11 Tests, but has got 5 in last 7 games!
Ojha is the first Indian left-arm spinner to take five-wicket innings hauls against England in two consecutive Tests.
Monty Panesar became first spinner from England and fifth overall to dismiss Sachin Tendulkar twice in a Test. Others to do so are Pakistan’s Saqlain Mushtaq (Chennai, 1998-99), Zimbabwe’s Ray Price (Delhi, 2001-02), Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi (Bangalore, 2004-05) and Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan (Colombo SSC, 2008).
Overall 17 bowlers have now dismissed Tendulkar twice in a Test. Monty Panesar is only the third bowler to dismiss Tendulkar twice in a Test without any assistance from his teammates. Ray Price (Delhi, 2001-02) and Brett Lee (Perth, 2007-08) dismissed Tendulkar LBW in both innings.
Tendulkar has now played 10 innings without scoring a fifty (since January 2012), which equals the second worst streak of his Test career. He had gone without a fifty in 10 consecutive innings between January and October 2008. His worst, however, came between December 2005 and December 2006 when he played 13 consecutive innings without a fifty.
Monty Panesar (10/190) became only the fifth England bowler to take 10 wickets in a match on Indian soil. He is the first spinner since Hedley Verity (11/153 at Chennai in 1933-34) to do so.
