Stats from the 4th Ashes Test: 100th Test Victory for England by an innings
England have regained the Ashes after attaining an unassailable lead over Australia courtesy of their innings victory in the 4th Ashes Test. With this loss, Australian Test skipper Michael Clarke has confirmed his retirement from the format after the 5th Test. Here are some of the most important numbers that were associated with the Test:
100 Test victories for England by a margin of an innings in Test History after they defeated Australia by an innings and 78 runs. Australia with 85 is second on the list, while no other country has managed even half-century of such wins with South Africa (42), West Indies (40), India (34), Pakistan (29), New Zealand (21) and Sri Lanka (20) following them remotely.
50 Test wins for Alastair Cook as a player- the most for any player from England. He was level on terms with James Anderson at 49 after winning the 3rd Test of this series. However, the absence of Anderson coupled with a victory in this Test has allowed him to become the most successful Test player in English history. Ian Bell with 48 and Andrew Strauss with 47 are behind him after James Anderson.
6 Ashes Tests won by Alastair Cook as captain- 2nd most for any English captain in the last 85 years. Only Mike Brearly with 11 wins during 1977-1981 is above him, while overall he is the joint 3rd most successful English captain in the Ashes along with Percy Chapman (1926-1930) .
7 losses in Ashes for Michael Clarke as captain- most for any Australian captain in the Ashes. He surpassed Allan Border, Billy Murdoch, Bill Woodful and Ricky Ponting who had lost 6 matches each (as captain). Overall he is now the 4th most unsuccessful captain in Ashes history when judged from total defeats one incurred playing as captain. The three captains who top the list are Archie MacLaren (11), Mike Atherton (8) and Johnny Douglas (7).
32 Ashes series won by England now. Australia have also won 32 Ashes series with 5 drawn from a total of 69.
106 matches won by England in Ashes while Australia have won 129 Ashes Tests. Overall it was the 108th win for England vs Australia in Tests while Australia have 139 matches in their pocket while playing against England.
343 Test matches won by England prior to this victory. This was their 344th win in 961 matches they have played, while Australia have now lost 208 matches from the 779 matches they played.
253 runs scored by Australia in the 3rd innings- the third highest total for 3rd innings of a Test after a team was dismissed for 60 or less than 60 runs in the 1st innings. The other two instances were Aus vs Eng in 1896 at Lord’s and NZ vs SA in 2013 at Cape Town.
6 number of 100 plus opening partnerships for Chris Rogers and David Warner in 3rd and 4th Innings of all Test matches- joint 2nd most for any pair in entire Test history. CPS Chauhan and Sunil Gavaskar also had six 100 plus partnerships while Greenidge and Haynes from West Indies had 8, and top the list. In Ashes history, the pair is again on the 2nd spot with four 100 plus opening partnerships in 3rd and 4th innings, with Jack Hobbs and Sutcliffe (5) above them.
6-111 Mitchel Starc’s figures in the 2nd Innings of this Test; which are his best in the career. He became only the second Australian bowler to take 6 or more wickets at Nottingham in last 80 years; the other one is Shane Warne. Starc’s previous best were 6 wickets vs South Africa at Perth on 30 Nov 2012 when he gave away 154 at an unaffordable economy of 5.34 rpo.
6-36 Ben Stokes’ figures in the 3rd innings of this match, which are the best for him in his career, Similar to Starc, he has also taken 6 wickets once before and gave away 99 runs at 4.99 rpo. It was also against Australia in Jan 2014.
22 times out of last 33 Test innings Michael Clarke has played, he has been dismissed for less than 25. He has gone past 50 for just 4 times, and unusually, all four times, he went onto make centuries.
16.71 the average of Michael Clarke during this series- which is 2nd lowest by any captain who captained the side in Ashes in last 50 years (with a minimum of 3 matches). Ricky Ponting only betters him on this list with an average of 16.14 in Ashes 2010.
0 number of 40 plus scores Michael Clarke has hit in 8 innings of this Ashes series so far. His highest score is 38 in this tournament. He is the only Australian captain in last 50 years of Ashes history not to have struck even a single forty plus score.
8628 runs for Michael Clarke in his Test career (114 Tests), which takes him 4th on the list of most runs in Test career for Australia. He crossed Mathew Hayden’s 8625 who played 103 Tests. Ricky Ponting (13378), Allan Border (11174) and Steve Waugh (10927) are the top three run-getters for Australia in Tests.
6.50 average of Steve Smith in his last 4 Ashes Innings with 7, 8, 6 and 5 runs. Prior to that, he scored 339 runs in 4 innings with an average of 84.75.