Highest aggregate partnerships for each wicket in Test cricket
Cricket is a team sport played between 22 players. Yet, at a time, there is only the striker and non-striker facing all the eleven opponents. Every partnership is essential in Test cricket. We always notice the mammoth partnerships and how they save the team from a grim situation or how they pile the agony on the fielding side. The incident of ending up 496 all out from 298/9 can happen any day and that is the magic of developing a partnership. While such recoveries are noted, we often tend to miss out on the aggregators.
Following are the pairs which have added most runs in Test cricket for a particular wicket. Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid hold the record of scoring most runs as partners but we will see where they lie for the third wicket partnership. The aggregate tally also provides the glimpse of why Australia and West Indies ruled world cricket for so long. Here is a wicket-by-wicket breakdown.
(All statistics as on 16th January 2019)
First wicket
The openers -throughout the course of Test cricket, these remain the two spots where batsmen are most scrutinized before being selected. The opening pair has to face the immediate brunt of the opposition. Bowlers are at their fittest at the start of the innings and the first wicket is tasked to see them off.
The testing job has seen some worthy candidates. The pairs of Hobbs-Sutcliffe, Lawry-Simpson, Greenidge-Haynes, Atapattu-Jayasuriya, Sehwag-Gambhir, etc. have etched their names in cricket history. The most prolific amongst them has been the West Indian opening pair of Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes.
The intimidating duo opened the innings for West Indies for a whopping 148 times from 1978 to 1991. Greenidge-Haynes added 6,482 runs at an average partnership of 47.31. Their highest stand was of 298 against England. The duo added 100 runs for the first wicket 16 times while they made team’s fifty 26 times. Without a doubt, they were an integral part of West Indies’ world domination.
Second on the all-time list is the Australian pair of Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer (5,655 runs in 113 innings averaging 51.88) while Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook take the third position with 4,711 runs in 117 outings.