Chennai Test: 3rd day's statistical highlights...
Mohandas Menon
** Sachin Tendulkar (126) recorded his 25th Test hundred of his career in his 82nd match. He now joins Australian captain Steve Waugh to become the fifth batsman with maximum Test hundreds. Only India's Sunil Gavaskar (34 hundreds), Australians Don Bradman (29) and Allan Border (27) and West Indian Gary Sobers (26) have scored more hundreds than Waugh and Tendulkar in Test history.
** This was Tendulkar's fourth hundred at this ground in five matches and seven innings. He now has the maximum Test hundreds by any batsman at Chepauk, going past Gavaskar's tally of three hundreds.
** It was his 12th "home" hundred in 37 matches and has 13 "away" hundreds in 45 matches.
** Tendulkar, meanwhile recorded his 48th first-class hundred of his career in 168 matches. Among Indians now only Gavaskar (81 hundreds), Vijay Hazare (60), Dilip Vengsarkar (55), Mohammad Azharuddin (51) and Polly Umrigar (49) have more first-class hundreds than Tendulkar.
** Tendulkar now has an aggregate of 638 runs, while averaging 127.60 runs per innings at this ground, with four hundreds!
** Rahul Dravid (81, when on 78) became the tenth batman (all from India) to aggregate 2000 runs on Indian soil. He now has 2003 runs in 23 matches. For the record, Gavaskar has the maximum aggregate of 5067 runs in 65 matches.
** After being involved in that huge parnership of 376 runs for the fifth wicket with VVS Laxman in the second innings at Kolkata, Rahul Dravid was involved in another partnership of 169 runs for the same wicket with Tendulkar. This provided the fourth instance in Indian Test history when two successive partnerships of over 100 runs were recorded for the fifth wicket.
** It was also, by far, the highest partnership for the fifth wicket at this ground obliterating the previous best of 118 runs by Indians Tendulkar and Pravin Amre against England in February 1993. However Tendulkar & Dravid failed to better the best for this wicket at Chennai, which still remains as the 177 runs by Indians Polly Umrigar and Chandu Borde against Pakistan in January 1961 - at the now defunct Corporation Stadium.
** Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly has not recorded a hundred since his 125 against New Zealand at Ahmedabad in October 1999. Since then in 10 matches and 20 innings he has failed to reach a three-figure mark and his highest since then was the 84 against minnow Bangladesh at Dhaka in November last year.
** Shane Warne's wicket of Dighe was his 376th of his Test career in 87 matches. This places him in the joint-seventh position among all-time Test bowlers with maximum wickets, after West Indian Courtney Walsh (500), Indian Kapil Dev (434), New Zealand's Richard Hadlee (431), Pakistani Wasim Akram (409), West Indian Curtly Ambrose (405) and England's Ian Botham (383). Warne now has the same number of wickets as former West Indian fast bowler late Malcolm Marshall.
** Interestingly, Warne now has equal number of wickets at home and away - 188 each.
** Off-spinner Colin Miller's two wickets in the penultimate over of the day saved him the ignominy of conceding maximum runs (151) by an Australian bowler without capturing a wicket in a Test innings. His team-mate Warne (0-147) still holds this dubious record - against India at Calcutta in March 1998.
** The 19 byes conceded by Adam Gilchrist was the maximum by an Australian keeper against India. The previous "worst" performance in this category was 18 each - by Don Tallon at Adelaide in January 1948 and by Ian Healy at this same ground in March 1998. In fact it was the worst performance by an Aussie keeper since March 1973 when Rodney Marsh had also conceded 19 byes against West Indies at Port of Spain.
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