Sri Lanka vs India 2017, 2nd Test Day 1 Stats: Pujara, Rahane reach multiple milestones
The nightmare continues for Sri Lanka: the second Test at Colombo has begun in pretty much the same fashion as the first one. As in the first Test, two Indians scored a century on the opening day, the first time this has happened in consecutive overseas Tests.
Cheteshwar Pujara, with his zen-like approach, continued to loot the Sri Lankan attack, who were further depleted by Nuwan Pradeep’s injury towards the end of the day. Ajinkya Rahane provided the perfect support, compiling his own hundred in the double-century stand, his sixth outside India.
Here are all the important numbers from the first day’s play of the second Test:
0 - Before India, no team had posted more than 300 on the first day of two consecutive Tests of a series.
1 - When he reached his fifty, Cheteshwar Pujara became the leading run getter in 2017, displacing Dean Elgar at the top of the batting charts in just his 12th innings.
2 - Pujara became the joint second-fastest to reach 4000 Test runs for India (84 innings). Virender Sehwag (81), Sunil Gavaskar (81) and Rahul Dravid (84) are the top-3.
3 - This is the third consecutive century for Pujara in three Tests in Sri Lanka.
3 - This is the third time in a calendar year that Pujara has hit two sixes: previously, he had hit two sixes each in 2015 and 2016.
4 - Malinda Pushpakumara played 99 first-class games before making his Test debut, the fourth most by a Sri Lanka. Dilruwan Perera played 140 games before getting the top honour.
5 - He also became the fifth batsman to complete 4000 runs in his fiftieth Test.
6 - Number of 50+ scores in consecutive innings for KL Rahul. Only Rahul Dravid and Gundappa Viswanath have scored more.
7 - Pujara became the seventh Indian to score a 100 in his 50th Test match. Virat Kohli was the last one to do so.
9 - Rahane completed his ninth Test century, his sixth outside India.
10 - After 10 consecutive Tests at the SSC, Sri Lanka lost the toss for the first time.
50 - This is Pujara’s 50th Test for India. He became the 31st Indian to achieve this feat. In the previous test at Galle, Ravichandran Ashwin had gone past the same landmark.
56 - Number of wickets taken by Rangana Herath as the second bowler in an innings of a Test. Ravichandran Ashwin tops the list with 60 wickets.
164 - Number of balls taken by Pujara to reach his century today, his third fastest century in Tests.