Sri Lanka vs India: Stats - Ashwin gets 11th 5-wicket haul while opening woes continue for Sri Lanka

The team had plenty of reasons to smile

6-46 – Ashwin’s figures in today’s play- best for any Indian spinner in the first innings of away Tests. For all Indian bowlers, his figures are 4th best in 1st innings while playing a Test not at home after Kapil Dev’s 8-85 vs Pakistan and 8-104 vs Australia, and Irfan Pathan’s 7-59 vs Zimbabwe. 6-46 are Ashwin’s personal best no. 3 after 7-103 vs Australia and 6-31 vs New Zealand.  

2nd – five-for Ashwin has got in away Tests, and both under the leadership of Virat Kohli in this year. Prior to those, he had 9 five-wicket hauls, all of which had come in India and under the captaincy of MS Dhoni. 

11th – five-wicket haul for Ashwin in Tests- most for any spinner with a maximum of 50 Test innings. If “spinner’s qualification” is removed, he has the joint 2nd most five-wicket hauls in Tests for a player with equal to or less than 50 innings.

183 – runs scored by Sri Lanka in their first innings today- their lowest in a home Test against India for the first innings. Overall it is the 3rd lowest in an India- Sri Lanka Test match in Sri Lanka irrespective of the innings number. The lowest most instances are Sri Lanka’s 136 and India’s 138 which came in the 4th and 3rd innings respectively. Including matches played in India, it becomes the 9th lowest innings total in Sri Lanka-India Tests and 2nd lowest in the 1st innings of such matches.

3 – number of times Sri Lanka had won a Test match after being dismissed for 200 or less runs in the first innings of Test matches. They scored 150 vs West Indies at Kandy, 183 vs New Zealand at Napier and 188 vs England at Kandy in 2005, 1995 and 2007 respectively and went on to win the match. In the entire Test history, there have been 76 such instances, where teams scoring less than 200 in the first innings of match stood victorious. 

15 – runs added by the openers of Sri Lanka in the first innings of this Test- their 2nd-joint lowest for the year 2015. Their lowest is 12 which came against Pakistan in Pallekele in July this year. In the year 2015, Sri Lanka has not yet posted a single half-century partnership for the 1st wicket. Their highest is 49 vs Pakistan at Colombo in June 2015.

13.4 – overs Ashwin took to get his 6 wickets- quickest for any Indian bowler to get 6 wickets. Earlier the record was held by Irfan Pathan for his 6 wickets in 14.2 overs vs Zimbabwe in 2005

38 –  hundreds for Kumar Sangakkara in Tests. Barring Sangakkara, 21 players playing in today’s match have 36 Test centuries in between them. 

50 – Test matches Angelo Mathews has now played for Sri Lanka. He is the 15th Sri Lankan player to reach 50 Test matches. Mahela Jayawardene (149) and Sangakkara (133) are toppers in this list. Overall, Mathews became the 255th player to play 50 or more Tests.

71.46 – Angelo Mathew’s batting average as captain- highest for any captain barring Don Bradman (min 20 innings). The next two on the list are his teammates with Kumar Sangakkara averaging 69.60 and Mahela Jayawardene 59.11 for the periods they led their team.