VVS Laxman during his marathon 281, bettered the following landmarks.

- Mohandas Menon

* on 168, he bettered his personal best score of 167 which was also against Australia at Sydney in January 2000.

* on 178, he bettered the previous highest score for India against Australia at home, which was 177 by Sachin Tendulkar at Bangalore in March 1998.

* on 183, he bettered India's highest at this venue which was the unbeaten 182 by Sunil Gavaskar (v West Indies, 1978-79) and 182 by M Azharuddin (v England, 1992-93).

* on 183, he also bettered West Indian Brian Lara's 182 in the recent Test match at Adelaide which the highest score by an individual batsman against Australia during their record-breaking winning steak since October 1999.

* on 207, he bettered the previous highest score by an Indian against Australia, which was 206 by Ravi Shastri at Sydney in January 1992.

* on 216, he bettered the previous highest score by any batsmen against Australia at number three in an away Test match, which was the 215 by English man David Gower at Birmingham in August 1985.

* on 228, he bettered the previous highest score by an Indian batsman at number three, which was the 227 by Vinod Kambli against Zimbabwe at Delhi in March 1993.

* on 237, he bettered the highest individual score by an Indian batsman which was 236 not out by Gavaskar at Madras, December 1983.

* on 238, he bettered the previous highest individual score by any batsman against Australia in the sub-continent, which was the 237 by Pakistani Salim Malik at Rawalpindi in October 1994.

* on 250, he became the seventh batsman in Test history to score 250-plus against the Aussies. on 252, he bettered the previous highest score by any batsmen against Australia at number three, which was the 251 by Englishman Wally Hammond at Sydney in December 1928.

* on 256, he bettered the previous highest Test score by an individual batsman on Indian soil which was the 256 by West Indian Rohan Kanhai at this venue.

* on 275, he became the fourth highest individual scorer against Australia. Now only England's Len Hutton (364 at The Oval, 1938) and Reg Foster (287 at Sydney, 1903-04) and West Indian Brian Lara (277 at Sydney, 1992-93) have scored more than Laxman against Australia.

* VVS Laxman's 281 places him in the 21st position in the all-time individual scores recorded by batsman in Test cricket. However, his score remains the third highest by a batsman against Australia after Englishmen Len Hutton's 364 and Reg Foster's 287.

* Although Laxman has the highest score by an Indian batsman in an innings he missed out by just four runs the maximum runs scored by an Indian batsman in a Test match. His 340 runs (59+281) in this match falls short of Sunil Gavaskar's 344 runs (124+220) made against West Indies at Port of Spain in April 1971.

* The 376 run partnership between Laxman and Rahul Dravid was the 16th highest for any wicket in all Test cricket. It was the third highest for the fifth wicket and the second highest for any wicket for India.

* The Indian pair however just missed out the highest partnership ever recorded against Australia for any wicket, which still remains as the 382 (for the 2nd wicket) by the English pair of Len Hutton and Maurice Leyland at the Oval in August 1938.