England vs India 2014 - 1st Test, Day 2: Facts and figures
India resumed day 2 of the 1st Test match against England at Trent Bridge on 259/4 with Murali Vijay, 122*, and MS Dhoni, 50*, being the overnight batsmen. Having clearly got the better of the hosts on the 1st day, they weren’t going to let the advantage slip. On a pitch causing no trouble for the batsmen, Vijay and Dhoni looked completely assured and carried on the good work of the previous day.
It took an umpiring howler from Bruce Oxenford for Vijay to finally be dismissed lbw off the bowling of James Anderson for a superbly crafted 146 from 361 balls. That led to Ravindra Jadeja joining his skipper MS Dhoni at the crease. The England bowlers, to be fair, stuck to their task without dropping shoulders and asked some questions of Dhoni in particular, not easy to do on such a pitch.
Dhoni, however, did well to survive with a bit of luck going his way and will be looking to push on during the 2nd session alongside Jadeja. India went into lunch on day 2 on the score of 342/5, with Dhoni on 81 not out from 147 balls and Jadeja, who played a nice little cameo just before lunch, on 24 off just 18 balls.
Here are a few interesting stats from day 2 of the 1st Test:
- 30 - Dhoni’s half century in the 1st innings was the 30th Test half-century in his career. Out of his 30 50s, 15 have come on home soil while 15 have come away.
- 4, 6, 6 - Ravindra Jadeja would have often heard about how difficult batting is in England. But he seemed to have absolutely no problems, with his first 3 scoring shots in England being 4, 6 and 6.
- 3 - Three is the number of 50+ scores Dhoni now has, as captain-keeper, in England. He has now overtaken Alec Stewart who had 2 half-centuries in England as captain and wicket-keeper.
- 4541 - That is the number of runs scored by Dhoni in Test cricket. He has gone past Stewart, who had 4540 runs to his name, and is now 3rd in the list of most runs by a wicket-keeper in Tests.
- 2- Dhoni’s innings of 82 from 152 balls is just the 2nd time in his entire career that he has faced more than 150 balls in an innings outside the sub-continent.
- 131 - Dhoni, in this Test career so far, has played a total of 131 innings but is yet to score a century outside the sub-continent. In fact, all of his Test hundreds have come in India with the exception of one, an innings of 148 against Pakistan in Faisalabad.
- 4 - Vijay, with his wonderful innings of 146, now has 4 scores of 135+ in Test match cricket. As far as Indian openers are concerned, he is behind Gautam Gambhir, Sunil Gavaskar and Virender Sehwag.
- 6 - The 100 run partnership between Vijay and Dhoni is just the 6th occasion that an Indian pair has put up a 100-run stand for the 5th wicket in England
- 19 - India’s win % when they score a total over 300 in the first innings of a Test outside Asia, which is the lowest for any team.