Calcutta Test: 1st day's statistical highlights...
Mohandas Menon
** Left-arm spinner Venkatapathy Raju was making a comeback to the Indian
side after a gap of nearly three years while missing 19 Test matches in
between. He last appeared against Australia in the Bangalore Test in March
1998.
* Harbhajan Singh became the first Indian to take a hat-trick in Test
cricket. (Although Chetan Sharma and Kapil Dev have done so but in a Limited
over-international match).
* Harbhajan provided Test cricket its 29th hat-trick since the first in
January 1879 and thus became the 26th bowler to do in Test history.
* The list now includes nine Englishmen, eight Australians, three West
Indians, two Pakistanis, and one bowler each from South Africa, New Zealand,
Sri Lanka and now India. Australians Hugh Trumble and Jimmy Matthews along
with Pakistani Wasim Akram are the only bowlers to do so of two separate
occasions. No bowlers from Zimbabwe and Bangladesh have claimed any Test
hat-tricks so far.
* The hat-trick was the first such instance on Indian soil. Now West Indies
is the only venue where no Test hat-tricks have been recorded as yet.
* Harbhajan becomes the seventh Test bowler to do so against Australia. The
others to do so are:
W Bates for Eng at Melbourne in 1882-83
J Briggs for Eng at Sydney in 1891-92
JT Hearne for Eng at Leeds in 1899
LR Gibbs for WI at Adelaide in 1960-61
CA Walsh for WI at Brisbane in 1988-89
D Gough for Eng at Sydney in 1998-99
** He becomes the tenth slow bowler to claim a Test hat-trick on 12
occasions. The full list
W Bates (off-spin) for Eng v Aus at Melbourne in 1882-83
J Briggs (slow left-arm) for Eng v Aus at Sydney in 1891-92
H Trumble (off-spin) for Aus v Eng at Melbourne in 1901-02
H Trumble (off-spin) for Aus v Eng at Melbourne in 1903-04
TJ Matthews (right arm leg-break) for Aus v SA at Manchester in 1912
TJ Matthews (right arm leg-break) for Aus v SA at Manchester in 1912
TWJ Goddard (off-spin) for Eng v SA at Johannesburg in 1938-39
LF Kline (left-arm chinaman) for Aus v SA at Cape Town in 1957-58
LR Gibbs (off-spin) for WI v Aus at Adelaide in 1960-61
PJ Petherick (off-spin) for NZ v Pak at Lahore in 1976-77
SK Warne (right arm leg-break) for Aus v Eng at Melbourne in 1994-95
Harbhajan Singh (off-spin) for India v Aus at Calcutta in 2000-01
** Harbhajan at 20 years 251 years became the second youngest to claim a
hat-trick after Pakistani Abdur Razzaq, who at 19 years 201 days remains the
youngest to do so - against Sri Lanka at Galle in June 2000.
** Playing in his 10th Test match, Harbhajan figures of 5-66 are his best
figures of his Test career bettering the previous best of 4-121 in the first
Test at Wankhede Stadium last month.
** Shane Warne's duck was his 21st of his career. He is now just one short
of dubious tally of 22 ducks by team-mate Glenn McGrath, who holds the
record for the maximum ducks by an Australian in Tests.
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