Test Records - Week Ending 16th July 2006

Test #1809 Pakistan in England 2006 (1st Test) at Lord's Cricket Ground, St John's Wood

A superb double century by Mohammed Yousuf , a century in his captaincy debut by Andrew Strauss and a record 9th consecutive half century against England by Inzamam-ul-Haq were the main highlights of the drawn encounter between England and Pakistan.

Mohammed Yousuf with his 4th double century became only the 13th player to record a double hundred at Lord's and 2nd pakistani batsman after Mohsin Khan. Following is the list of all double century makers at Lord's in test cricket.

211 JB Hobbs England v South Africa Lord's1924
254 DG Bradman Australia v England Lord's 1930
240 WR Hammond England v Australia Lord's 1938
206* WA Brown Australia v England Lord's1938

205* J Hardstaff jnr England v India Lord's1946
208 DCS Compton England v South Africa Lord's1947

206 MP Donnelly New Zealand v England Lord's1949
200 Mohsin Khan Pakistan v England Lord's1982

214* CG Greenidge West Indies v England Lord's1984
333 GA Gooch England v India Lord's1990
259 GC Smith South Africa v England Lord's 2003
221 RWT Key England v West Indies Lord's 2004
202 Mohammad Yousuf Pakistan v England Lord's 2006

England's Andrew Strauss became only the 3rd player for England and 24 th overall to have scored a century in his first test as captain. He also becomes only the 3rd player in history of test cricket to have scored a century on debut both as a player and as a captain having already scored a century on debut (112 & 83) against NZ at the same venue in 2004. Following table lists all the instances of a century in maiden test as captain.

Scores	Player	For v Against	Venue	Series	Test Seq	Result
0 & 153*	WL Murdoch	Aus v Eng	The Oval	1880	t0004	LOST
0 & 143	GHS Trott	Aus v Eng	Lord's	1896	t0050	LOST
109 & 50*	AC MacLaren	Eng v Aus	Sydney(1)	1897-98	t0053	WON
133 & 22	MA Noble	Aus v Eng	Sydney(1)	1903-04	t0078	LOST
191 & dnb	C Hill	Aus v SAf	Sydney(1)	1910-11	t0111	WON
109 & 8	HW Taylor	SAf v Eng	Durban(1)	1913-14	t0130	LOST
12 & 158	WW Armstrong	Aus v Eng	Sydney(1)	1920-21	t0135	WON
112 & dnb	AL Hassett	Aus v SAf	Johannesburg(1)	1949-50	t0318	WON
164* & dnb	VS Hazare	Ind v Eng	Delhi	1951-52	t0339	DRAW
10 & 104	JB Stollmeyer	WI v Aus	Sydney(5)	1951-52	t0347	LOST
107 & 68	GO Rabone	NZ v SAf	Durban	1953-54	t0377	LOST
104* & 48	DJ McGlew	SAf v Eng	Manchester	1955	t0410	WON
239 & 5	GT Dowling	NZ v Ind	Christchurch	1967-68	t0631	WON
126 & dnb	BE Congdon	NZ v WI	Bridgetown	1971-72	t0695	DRAW
30 & 163	CH Lloyd	WI v Ind	Bangalore	1974-75	t0745	WON
123 & 109*	GS Chappell	Aus v WI	Brisbane	1975-76	t0764	WON
116 & 35*	SM Gavaskar	Ind v NZ	Auckland	1975-76	t0769	WON
7 & 102	GN Yallop	Aus v Eng	Brisbane	1978-79	t0834	LOST
120* & dnb	JJ Crowe	NZ v SL	Colombo(CCC)	1986-87	t1074	DRAW
10 & 102	DB Vengsarkar	Ind v WI	Delhi	1987-88	t1080	LOST
119 & 10	AJ Lamb	Eng v WI	Bridgetown	1989-90	t1143	LOST
121 & 41*	DL Houghton	Zim v Ind	Harare	1992-93	t1197	DRAW
203* & dnb	S Chanderpaul	WI v Saf	Georgetown	2004-05	t1745	DRAW
30 *& 128	AJ Strauss	Eng v Pak	Lord's	2006	t1809	DRAW

**Greg Chappel is the only cricketer to have recorded a century in each innings of a test he lead for the first time. Chappell along with Strauss and Zimbabwe's David Houghton shares another unique record of hitting a century on debut both as a player and as a captain. Houghton's record was achieved in the same test as he was leading the side while making his test debut in Zimbabwe's inaugural test match.


During his 2nd innings knock of 48 , Mohammed Yousuf also completed 1000 runs against England in just 9 tests and became the 7th pakistani batsman to do so as shown in the list below. He thus becomes the 99th cricketer to have aggregated 1000 runs against England. As many as 47 Australians, 18 West Indians, 12 Springboks, 10 Indians, 4 Kiwis and one Sri Lankan have done this before Mohammed Yousuf with the inimitable Bradman heading the list with 5028 runs in 37 tests.

Mushtaq Mohammad	Pakistan	23	41	4	1554	157	3	11	42.00
Inzamam-Ul-Haq*	Pakistan	16	27	3	1477	148	5	10	61.54
Salim Malik	Pakistan	19	28	5	1396	165	4	9	60.70
Javed Miandad	Pakistan	22	32	6	1329	260	2	9	51.12
Zaheer Abbas	Pakistan	14	24	3	1086	274	2	4	51.71
Hanif Mohammad	Pakistan	18	33	2	1039	*187	3	3	33.52
Mohammad Yousuf*	Pakistan	9	15	0	1019	223	4	2	67.93

Ian Bell, during his unbeaten century knock in the first innings completed 1000 runs in test cricket to become the 89th cricketer from England and 424th player overall to achieve the milestone.

By avoiding a duck in 46 innings that he batted in 30 tests so far , Geraint Jones of England now holds the record of playing most innings in a test career without ever getting dismissed for a duck. He surpasses Australia's Jim Burke's record of 44 innings test career without a duck. Jones will continue to climb up the ladder in the list of most innings before first duck as long as he does't get out for a zero. Aravinda de Silva of Sri Lanka currently holds the record with 75 innings, followed by Clive Lloyd of West Indies with 58 and Alan Davidson of Australia with 51. Jones is joint fourth in the list with Basil Butcher of West Indies , who too played 46 innings before registering a duck in test cricket. David Gower with 119 consecutive test innings holds the record for palying most number of innings between two ducks.

Finally a trivia fact : Inzamam-ul-Haq now had hit a half century against England in each of his last 9 innings against them. This may or may not be a record (will do some research on this and come out with another post) , but definitely England would like to get rid of his wicket early when they meet again in the 2nd test of this series at Manchester on 27th July.