Test Records - Week Ending 25th June 2006

Test #1807 India in West Indies 2006 (3rdTest) at Warner Park, Basseterre, St Kitts

By drawing the 3^rd test against West Indies, Indian team might come back home without a series win in Caribbean islands for the 6^th time in a row, if they do not mange to win the fourth and final test at Kingston, Jamaica. It’s been 35 years since India won a test series in West Indies. Last time when they won an young lad named Sunil Gavaskar made his debut in a grand style by compiling 774 runs in just 4 tests he played in that Series. Since then he retired from Cricket after compiling highest number of centuries and runs in tests not only for India but also by any cricketer. Of course those tallies since then were overtaken by Tendulkar who made his debut two years later Gavaskar retired from international cricket, but no test series victory yet for India though they visited the Caribbean islands six times including the current tour. The current Indian team can at least become the second team ever from India to come back without losing a test series if they do not lose the last test. Every Indian team that visited West Indies, except the 1970/71 Wadekar lead victorious Indian team who won the 5-Test rubber with a 1-0 margin came back home with a test series loss.

Here are some of the Statistical highlights and records that were achieved in this test:

Ramanaresh Sarwan with his 6 boundaries in Munaf Patel’s over became only 14^th player in cricket history to have scored 24 or more runs in an over n test cricket.

** L denotes leg byes, N for No ball and LN for leg bye of a no ball.

• Botham’s 6^th ball to Roberts was hit for one leg bye.
• Sutcliffe and Blair (25), and Morrison (24) scored their runs in an 8-ball over
• Caddick's 4^th ball of the over was a no-ball from which a leg-bye was taken ( 2 extras)
• Willis’ 3rd ball of the over was a no-ball of which a boundary scored off, no extra run added as per the cricket laws at that time.
• Munaf Patel’s 6^th ball was a no ball of which a boundary was scored and an additional extra run added as per the prevailing cricket laws.

During his 1^st innings knock of 87 MN Samuels completed 1000 runs in test cricket to become 423^rd cricketer and 45^th West Indian to achieve the milestone. Chris Gayle while scoring his 1^st innings 83 and Sewhag in his 2^nd innings score of 60 became the 95^th and 96^th cricketers to have completed 4000 runs in test cricket. Chris Gayle is 15^th West Indian and Virendra Sewhag is 11^th Indian to do so.

At the end of the test their test records read as:

Finally a trivia fact: Playing in his 97^th test Shivnarine Chanderpaul was left stranded on 97 while his team was all out. This provides 46^th instance in test cricket that a batsman was left unbeaten in nineties in a completed innings. Allan Border & Steve Waugh of Australia and Ridley Jacobs & Shivnarine Chanderpaul of West Indies are the only batsmen to have suffered this fate more than once. Ridley Jacobs with 3 scores of unbeaten ninties in a completed test innings holds the record.