On a day when India dominated all three sessions, MS Dhoni found one of the most unlikely of allies to carve out a record partnership. The man at the other end was debutant Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who continued to stand tall even as stumps were called on Day 3 of the first Test. The young pacer and his skipper have thus far added 109 runs for the ninth wicket. In the process, the pair have registered India’s highest ninth-wicket stand against the men from Down Under.
Also, during his 206-run unbeaten knock, Dhoni shattered several other records. Here’s a look at these and many other stats highlights from today’s play:
Sachin Tendulkar (81) made his 12th score in the eighties – the most by any batsman in Test cricket. He was earlier at level with Allan Border, Mike Atherton and Rahul Dravid with 11 such scores.
Interestingly, Tendulkar now has the most scores in the 80s (12), 90s (10 – record shared) and 100s (51).
Tendulkar got out bowled for the 54th time in his Test career. Only Rahul Dravid has been dismissed in this fashion more often – 55 times.
In his last 18 innings, Tendulkar has been dismissed bowled 8 times and lbw 3 times.
The top four Indian batsmen were all bowled. This was only the third such instance for India. The other two came in the same series against Pakistan in 1954-55.
Virat Kohli (107) made his fourth Test hundred – third at home and second against Australia.
The hundred was Kohli’s second in consecutive Tests. He had made 103 against England at Nagpur in December 2012.
The seven bowleds in the innings are the most for India in a Test innings. At Lord’s in 1952 vs England and at Kolkata in 1958-59 vs West Indies also seven Indian batsmen were out bowled.
MS Dhoni (206*) scored his highest score in Test and first-class cricket, beating the 148 he made against Pakistan at Faisalabad in 2005-06.
The hundred was Dhoni’s sixth ton in his 74th Test. All other Indian ‘keepers have a combined tally of 10 hundreds in 395 Tests.
Dhoni’s innings is now the second highest by an Indian captain in Test cricket, after Sachin Tendulkar’s 217 vs New Zealand at Ahmedabad in 1999-00.
Dhoni’s innings is the highest by a wicketkeeper-captain in Test cricket, obliterating England’s Alec Stewart’s 164 vs South Africa at Manchester in 1998.
Dhoni’s innings is also the highest by an Indian wicketkeeper in Test cricket, beating Budhi Kunderan’s 192 vs England also at Chennai in 1963-64.
Dhoni scored 109 runs in the post-tea session. He is only the sixth Indian batsman to score a hundred in a session, after Polly Umrigar, Mohammad Azharuddin, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh. Sehwag has done this on three occasions.
Dhoni became only the second Indian to score 200 runs in a single day, after Virender Sehwag, who did so on three occasions.
Dhoni has now aggregated 2667 runs as Indian captain, which takes him past Sourav Ganguly’s tally of 2561 runs. Now only Sunil Gavaskar (3449) and Mohammad Azharuddin (2856) are ahead of Dhoni when it comes to scoring more runs while captaining India.
Dhoni has now aggregated 8197 runs as India’s captain in international cricket (Tests/ODIs/T20Is) – the most by any Indian captain. He surpassed Mohammmad Azharuddin’s tally of 8095 runs.
During his innings, Dhoni completed his 4000 runs in Test cricket. He thus became first Indian and seventh wicketkeeper overall to reach this landmark.
Dhoni raced to his double-hundred off 231 balls, which is the sixth fastest double hundred by an Indian and joint 11th fastest in Test cricket. It is also the fastest double-hundred against Australia. Viv Richards –who took 242 balls to race to his double-hundred at Melbourne in 1984-85 – held the previous record.
Clarke and Dhoni provided the third instance of both captains scoring a hundred in same Test in India-Australia rivalry. The last time this had happened was also at Chennai in 1986-87 when Allan Border (106) and Kapil Dev (119) scored hundreds together. That match ended in a tie!
The unbroken partnership of 109 runs between Dhoni and Bhuvneshwar Kumar is India’s best for the ninth wicket against Australia. This obliterates the previous record stand of 89 between Irfan Pathan and Harbhajan Singh at Bangalore in 2004-05.
India’s total of 515/8 is their highest against Australia at Chennai. The previous highest was 501 in 2000-01.
