On a day that R Ashwin spun a web around the Australian batting line-up, Michael Clarke – along with debtant Moises Henriques – managed to shine through with a stellar batting performance. The Australian skipper continued his good run against India by bringing up yet another Test century – his 23rd overall and ninth against the Indians.
Here are these and many more stats highlights from a day, at the end of which both sides drew even with outstanding individual performances:
Moises Henriques and Bhuvneshwar Kumar made their Test debut. They became the 432nd and 276th players to represent Australia and India respectively.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar became the second bowler in cricket history to bowl the first over for his team in all three formats of the game on debut – Tests, ODIs and T20Is. Sri Lanka’s Chaminda Vaas is the only other bowler to perform this feat.
Sachin Tendulkar moved to the fifth place among players with longest career span in Test cricket, ahead of John Traicos, who had a career span of 23 years 40 days for two countries (South Africa and Zimbabwe). Now only Wilfred Rhodes (30 yrs 315 days), Brian Close (26 yrs 356 days), Frank Woolley (25 yrs 13 days) and George Headley (24 yrs 10 days) have a longer Test career span than Tendulkar.
Harbhajan Singh became tenth Indian to play 100 Tests after Sachin Tendulkar (195), Rahul Dravid (164), VVS Laxman (134), Anil Kumble (132), Kapil Dev (131), Sunil Gavaskar (125), Dilip Vengsarkar (116), Sourav Ganguly (113) and Virender Sehwag (103).
Harbhajan also became only the second off-spinner to appear in 100 Tests, after Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan, who played in 133 Tests.
This is the 31st Test at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai. With this Chennai joins Feroz Shah Kotla, which has also hosted 31 Tests. Now only Eden Gardens (38) is ahead among the Indian Test grounds in terms of Tests hosted.
The toss winning captain has opted to bat first on 30 out of 31 occasions at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai. The only side to go against the trend was England, who did so in 1981-82. That match ended in a draw.
Michael Clarke, while on 11, completed 7,000 runs in his 90th Test. He became the 42nd batsman and 10th Australian to accomplish this feat.
Clarke is the third quickest among Australians to reach the 7,000-run mark, taking 149 innings to do so. Only Matthew Hayden (142) and Ricky Ponting (145) took fewer innings to complete 7,000 runs for Australia. Don Bradman scored 6,996 runs in just 80 innings!
The sixth wicket partnership of 151 runs between Michael Clarke and Moises Henriques is the highest for this wicket at Chennai against India. The previous best was 99 between Hashim Amla and Mark Bouhcer for South Africa in 2007-08.
R Ashwin (6/88) claimed his sixth five-wicket haul in 13th Test – his first in fourth Test against Australia.
The first six wickets to fall in the Australian innings were all taken by R Ashwin. He is the first Indian to do so since Anil Kumble (vs Pakistan at Delhi in 1998-99), who took all 10 wickets in that particular innings.
Michael Clarke (103*) scored his 23rd hundred in his 90th Test – his sixth in 19 Tests against India.
The hundred is Clarke’s third on Indian soil (he had made 151 on Test debut at Bangalore in 2004-05 and 112 at Delhi in 2008-09). He now shares the record of scoring most hundreds for Australia on Indian soil with Neil Harvey.
This hundred is also Clarke’s ninth in 22 Tests as Australian captain.
Clarke has now aggregated 2,395 runs as captain at an average of 72.57. Among the players, who have captained their sides in at least 10 Tests, Clarke has the second-best average after Don Bradman (101.52)
In his last five innings against India, Clarke has aggregated 697 runs at an average of 232.33. His scores are: 329* (at Sydney), 18 (at Perth), 210 & 37 (at Adelaide) and 103* in this match.
Australia ended the Day 1 at 316 for seven. This is the second highest opening day score at Chennai. Interestingly, the record is also held by Australia. They had made 326 for three in 2000-01 (only to be bowled out for 391 the following day).
