After India’s 3-1 Test success against England, Sky Cricket’s Benedict Bermange brings you the top stats, including on a prolific debut series for home spinner Axar Patel and visiting captain Joe Root's lbw issues…
- In the first Test, Joe Root made the highest score by an England batsman in India, and also made the highest individual score by anyone in their 100th Test:
- Thanks to the third umpire's intervention, Ravichandran Ashwin was called for the first no-balls in his Test career after more than 20,000 deliveries. The record for the most deliveries without ever bowling a no-ball in an entire Test career now belongs to Graeme Swann, with 15,349. Swann did bowl one wide in his Test career, so the most deliveries without a no-ball or wide in an entire Test career is 14,513 by Australian Clarrie Grimmett.
- India's first innings of 329 in the second Test contained no extras, which set a new record for Test cricket, just edging past the previous record, which had stood for more than 60 years:
- In the 100 years before this series, no spinner had taken a wicket from the first ball of a Test innings. However, both Ashwin and Axar Patel managed that feat in the series, making the total four in all Test cricket history. Ashwin and Axar following Bobby Peel for England vs Australia at Lord's in 1888 and Bert Vogler for South Africa vs England at The Oval in 1907.
- The third Test marked England's first defeat within two days in a Test since they lost to Australia by ten wickets at Nottingham in 1921 and it was the shortest Test to end in a positive result since 1932, the shortest ever to involve India, and the seventh-shortest of all-time:
- In the third Test, Ashwin took his 400th Test wicket in his 77th Test, the second-fewest of the 16 bowlers to take that many in Test cricket. Only Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan, who did it in 72 Tests, achieved the feat quicker than Ashwin. Sir Richard Hadlee (New Zealand) and Dale Steyn (South Africa) did it in 80 Tests.
- The third Test match was Ishant Sharma's 100th Test and he marked it by hitting his first six. Only one player has waited longer before striking his first six in Test cricket - Glenn McGrath, who took 102 Tests.
- India won the fourth Test by an innings, despite as many as four of their batsmen being dismissed for ducks, a feat only performed three previous times in Test history:
- Only two bowlers have taken more wickets in their first three Tests than Axar Patel's 27 - India's Narendra Hirwani bagging 31 at home to West Indies and New Zealand in 1988 and Australia's Charlie Turner taking 29 against England across three Tests in Sydney in 1887-1888.
- Root was dismissed lbw on four occasions in the series, one short of the record for a batsman in a single series:
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