Day 4 of the Nagpur Test saw a rare occurrence – it was only the fourth instance when an Indian skipper declared the first innings while his team was still trailing. MS Dhoni called back his batters with Team India 4 runs behind England’s first-innings tally of 330.
Once the visitors took strike, Alastair Cook, who’s had a wonderful series so far, managed only 13 runs, before being dismissed. After scoring tons in his first five Tests as England captain, the left-hander for the first time as his team’s leader failed to reach three figures in a match. However, he did, in the process, surpass Mike Gatting’s tally of 862 runs, thereby becoming the highest run-getter for England in India.
Here are these and some more stats highlights from Day 4 of a very interesting Test:
MS Dhoni declared the Indian innings at 326 for 9 despite trailing England. This was only the fourth instance of an Indian captain declaring while trailing on the first innings. The other such instances were vs Australia at Melbourne in 1947-48 (Lost), vs Pakistan at Faisalabad in 1978-79 (Drawn) and vs England at Kanpur in 1981-82 (Drawn).
Incidentally, it was overall the 27th occasion of a side declaring its innings despite trailing in the first innings. The result summary: 3 wins, 6 losses and 17 draws.
Alastair Cook, on 10, became the highest run-scorer for England in India, surpassing Mike Gatting’s tally of 862 runs.
Cook ended the series with 562 runs (avg 80.28) and three hundreds in 1714 minutes (28 hours 34 minutes) off 1285 balls.
Only three batsmen have batted longer in a series in India than Cook – Sunil Gavaskar (1976 minutes vs England in 1981-82), Gundappa Viswanath (1757 minutes vs West Indies in 1974-75) and Allan Border (1723 minutes for Australia in 1979-80).
In Test cricket only two batsmen have batted for a longer duration than Cook in a four-match series. India’s Rahul Dravid batted for 1861 minutes (31 hours one minute) vs England in England in 2002 and West Indies’ Richie Richardson batted for 1814 minutes (30 hours 14 minutes) vs India in West Indies in 1988-89.
After scoring hundreds in five consecutive Tests as captain, Cook’s streak was finally halted. He thus missed the opportunity to equal Don Bradman’s record of scoring hundreds in six consecutive Tests as captain. However, Cook remains the only one to score hundreds in his first five Tests at the helm.
The catch to dismiss Cook gave MS Dhoni his 108th dismissals (89 catches and 19 stumpings) in a home Test. With this he equalled Syed Kirmani’s record of most dismissals on home soil.
Kevin Pietersen fell to left-arm spin once again – his fifth such dismissal in the series and 28th overall.
This Test will go down in the record books as one of the slowest Test matches ever with runs coming at a snail’s pace. The run-rate of 2.22 is the slowest ever in any Test since the West Indies-South Africa St.John’s Test in 2000-01, which saw an overall run-rate of just 1.99.
The last time when runs were scored at an even slower pace in a Test on Indian soil (where both teams batted) was in 1990-91 in the India-Sri Lanka Test at Chandigarh. The run-rate was 2.00 in that Test.
