Statistical highlights (1st day) at Mohali
by Mohandas Menon
-- Tinu Yohannan, Iqbal Siddiqui and Sanjay Bangar became the 240th, 241st and the 242nd players to appear for India in Tests, while James Foster and Richard Dawson became the 608th and 609th players to do so for England.
-- Yohannan was appearing in his 9th first-class match, while Siddiqui his 72nd and Bangar his 57th match respectively. Foster was appearing in his 26th first-class match, while Dawson his 13th.
-- Yohannan (born: Quilon, 18-02-1979) now has the distinction of becoming the first player representing the state of Kerala to make his Test debut. Incidentally the two other Kerala born Test players were: VN Swamy (born: Calicut, 23-5-1924) and Abey Kuruvilla (born: Mannar, 8-8-1968). However both these players represented Services (in the 1950s) and Mumbai (in the 1990s) respectively in the Ranji Trophy, but never Kerala.
-- Foster at 21 years 233 days, became the fourth youngest debutant
wicket-keeper to appear for England. Gregor MacGregor (20 yrs-324 days in
1890), Chris Read (20-325 in 1999) and Alan Knott (21-123 in 1967) were
younger than Foster. However Foster becomes the youngest keeper for England
in an away Test match. The previous youngest was Knott (21-340) against West
Indies at Port of Spain in March 1968.
-- Dawson, who was appearing in his 13th first-class match, became the most
inexperienced player to represent England in a Test match since 1946. Alec
Bedser who made his Test debut against India at Lord's in 1946 was then
playing in his 12th first-class match.
-- This was the first time since their inaugural Test match in 1932 against
England at Lord's, the first three Indian pace bowlers were making their
Test debuts. Interestingly, India since then in 346 matches has never gone
into a Test match with two debutant opening bowlers, let alone three.
--Yohannan became the seventh Indian bowler to capture a Test
wicket in their very first over. Ganguly had captured his wicket (Hussain)
off his seventh ball - the first ball of his second over - at Lord's in
1996.
The full list:
NM Kulkarni of MS Atapattu (1st ball) v SL at Colombo (RP) in1997-98
MS Hardikar of RB Kanhai (3rd ball) v WI at Bombay in1958-59
WV Raman of CA Walsh (4th ball) v WI at Madras in 1987-88
T Yohannan of MA Butcher (4th ball) v Eng at Mohali in 2001-02
SA Banerjee of D St E Atkinson (5th ball) v WI at Calcutta in 1948-49
C Sharma of Mohsin Khan (5th ball) v Pak at Lahore in 1984-85
VV Kumar of Imtiaz Ahmed (6th ball) v Pak at Delhi in 1960-61
SC Ganguly of Nasser Hussain(6th ball) v Eng at Lord's in 1996
-- The 125 run partnership between Marcus Trescothick and Naseer Hussain was
the best at this ground for 2nd wicket. The pair bettered the previous best
of 104 runs between Sri Lankans Marvan Atapattu and Roshan Mahanama in
November 1997.
-- Harbhajan's 5-51 was the best bowling performance by a spinner at this
venue bettering the 4-90 by teammate Anil Kumble against the West Indies in
December 1994.
-- Harbhajan now has 52 wickets this calendar year in 10 matches.
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