Statistical highlights of the opening day's play in the first Test between India [ Images ] and Australia [ Images ], in Bangalore, on Thursday.

• Scorecard | Images from Day 1 | Report

# When his score reached 24 during his innings of 123 off 343 balls, Ricky Ponting [ Images ] moved past India's Sunil Gavaskar's [ Images ] run-aggregate of 10,122 in 125 Tests.

# Ponting, playing in his 200th Test innings, registered his 36th hundred -- his sixth against India in 20 Tests and his first in India in nine 9 Tests.

# Ponting's tally of 36 centuries is exceeded only by India's Sachin Tendulkar [ Images ] (39).

# Ponting, with the hundred equalled the Australian record of six hundreds each by Matthew Hayden [ Images ] and David Boon against India.

# Ponting's 123 off 243 balls is his maiden hundred against India in India, eclipsing his 60 at Kolkata [ Images ] in 1997-98.

# Ponting's hundred against India at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium is his 16th as skipper, setting a record for most Test centuries as captain, bettering the record of Allan Border [ Images ] and Steve Waugh [ Images ], who both had hit 15 hundreds.

# Harbhajan Singh [ Images ] has dismissed Ponting on nine occasions in 10 Tests -- the most times Ponting has been dismissed by any bowler.

# Simon Katich [ Images ] (66 off 149 balls) recorded his fifth half-century against India -- his ninth in Test cricket.

# The 166-run stand between Katich and Ponting is Australia's best for the second-wicket at Bangalore, bettering the 78 between Allan Border and Andrew Hilditch in 1979-80.

The said stand is now the second-best by an Australian pair for the  wicket against India in India, next only to the 204 between Neil Harvey and Jim Burke in the 1956-57 Mumbai [ Images ] Test.