Pathum Nissanka became the fourth Sri Lankan player to score a century on debut.
Here is a list of all Sri Lankan players to have scored a 50 or more on Test debut.
Note that several members of the current Sri Lankan team are in this list. Chandimal and Kusal (MDKJ) Perera had scored two fifties on debut, along with Hasuranga (PWH) de Silva, Karunaratne, Dickwella and Dilruwan (MDK) Perera.
ODI debuts by Indian players were highlighted in the first match, both in batting and bowling.
ODI debuts by India (minimum 40 runs):
KL Rahul is the only player from India to score a century on ODI debut. Before that, RV Uthappa’s record of 86 stood for several years.
This table also gives the strike rate for the innings. Indeed, the highest rate is 187 by KH Pandya, far ahead of the previous record of 127 by Azharuddin back in 1984-85.
This list includes several who served India well, and others who vanished quickly. For instance, Khurasiya scored 57 on debut and played in only a few ODIs after that.
Now we look at those who scored 40 or more on their ODI debut which was against India:
The highest is 90 by SP Fleming, who also scored 90+ on his Test debut. Some other famous names here include Wade, du Plessis, RB Richardson and YJ Bairstow. Others such as CS Cowdrey and Moxon did not last long.
Now we look at ODI debuts by Indian players, with a minimum of 3 wickets in an innings:
We see that MP Krishna’s 4-54 is the best by an Indian player on ODI debut, surpassing the long-forgotten NA David’s 3-21 in 1997.
David’s 2.62 is also the best economy rate here, followed by ST Banerjee’s 3.00. The worst is 6.66 by C Sharma, just ahead of Krishna’s 6.61.
Prominent names here include Pandya junior, DR Doshi and even BS Chandrasekhar.
Finally, we look at those who took 3wi on their Test debut which was against India.
The best here is 5-28 by BD’s Taskin Ahmed, just ahead of AA Donald’s 5-29. Donald and maybe Henry and Styris are the only others who lasted long enough.
The best economy rates are 2.50 by FA Rose and 3.16 by SA Thomson. The worst is 6.30 by SB Styris.
The proposed link from Baranagar to Line 4 is not under construction yet.
Here we can see the full list of stations on Line 1 in both directions. This includes the station codes as well as inter-station distances. Different sources may give slightly different distances.
Note that states joined the US at different times. After the original 13 states, the newcomers joined steadily and the last 5 to join were OK (1907), NM and AZ (1912), AK and HI (1959).
Biden was the second President (after Buchanan) to be born in PA state. Buchanan is generally considered to be one of the worst Presidents.
If Trump had suddenly ceased to be President, Mike Pence would have been the first President to be born in Indiana state.
If this eventuality occurs now, Kamala Harris will be the second President born in California and the first from Northern California (Oakland). The only other President born in California is Richard Nixon, in Yorba Linda near Los Angeles.
There are several large states where no President has been born.
By population, these would include Florida (#3), Michigan (10), New Jersey (11), Washington (13) and Arizona (14). At the other end of the scale, #50 (Wyoming) and #48 (Alaska) have had no representatives, although Vermont (#49) does have Calvin Coolidge.
In many cases, a person may have largely grown up in a state which is not the state of his/her birth. This is more likely to happen in the US than India and most European countries.
Afghanistan has now played 6 Tests, neatly divided into 3 losses and 3 wins.
Here we compare the performances in the first 5 Tests for all teams (except Ireland who have played only 3 Tests).
(1 point for a win, 0.5 for a draw)
We see that Australia and England have the best performance in their first 5 Tests, followed by Afghanistan, New Zealand and Pakistan.
Australia is the only team to win their first Test, and Zimbabwe the only one to draw their first Test. Zimbabwe in fact drew their first 2 Tests.
Bangladesh and South Africa lost their first 5 Tests in a row.
We now look at individual performances by Afghan players in the 6 Tests played so far.
Most runs (100 and more):
Note the consistency of Asghar Afghan and Rahmat Shah who each made four 50+ scores.
Highest scores (75 and above):
While H Shahidi has the only double century here, others have been more consistent.
Bowling (5 or more wickets overall):
Rashid Khan has more than twice the next (Amir Hamza)
Innings bowling (4 or more wickets):
Note the dominance of Rashid Khan here. He and Amir Hamza are the only ones to have taken 4wi. Hamza’s 5-74 against WI was on debut.
Match bowling (5 or more wickets):
The top three places are by Rashid Khan, and the next two by Amir Hamza. He took 6-79 on debut.
Most dismissals (4 or more):
While wicketkeeper A Zazai has 10 dismissals, I Zadran has the most (6) by a non-keeper.
All-round overall:
Rashid Khan is the only one who can be called an all-rounder.
All-round match (fifty and 5wi):
Here, too, the only standout performer is Rashid Khan. He was captaining his side, and scored a fifty and took over 10 wickets. The only other Test captains who did this are Imran Khan (v Ind 1982-83) and AR Border (v WI 1988-89).
India will play New Zealand in the finals of the World Test Championship. This will be India’s first neutral Test, while Bangladesh is the only other team not to have played a neutral test so far.
Here is a summary of the 45 neutral Tests so far. It is long story, starting in the year of the Titanic.
You can see that England’s 81 is their lowest total against India. The previous record was 101 in 1971 where Chandrashekhar took 6-38 to set up India’s first Test win in England.
And their previous lowest total in India was 102 in 1981-82, when Kapil and Madan Lal took fivers in the 4th innings.
Most economical 5-for by a spinner in a Test innings: Root’s 5-8 is in second place after Australia’s Ironmonger if you take the criteria of the least runs conceded in a 5-for:
Only Ironmonger’s 5-6 in 1931-32 has less runs conceded.
Let us also look at the same figure for all captains (regardless of bowling styles):
Here, Root’s innings bowling is second to AER Gilligan’s 6-7. But Gilligan was clearly a medium pacer. The previous record by a captain who was a spin bowler was 5-27 by BS Bedi v NZ in 1976-77. Next is Mushtaq Mohammad with 5-28.
And finally, the Devil makes a comeback here with a score of 66/6:
Though England has also faced 666/6 against India not long ago at Chennai in 2016-17, in KK Nair’s match.
Note Ashwin and Axar Patel, the latter with only one Test.
Best innings bowling (includes all cases of 6wi and above):
AR Patel is here along with I Sharma.
Best match bowling (includes all cases of 8wm and above):
AR Patel now has the best match bowling figures, surpassing the 10-62 of PJ Cummins.
Best bowling average (Min 1000 balls bowled, all instances):
Cummins heads this list. Yasir Shah is the only non-Australian here.
Cummins also has the best economy rate, while Starc has the best strike rate.
Fielding records:
Most dismissals-(8 and above):
Most innings dismissals (4 and above):
Australians dominate as expected. Note that Kusal Mendis has the most catches by a non-keeper.
Most match dismissals (5 and above):
de Villiers leads here. Note 5 catches by non-fielders BKG Mendis and SPD Smith.
Dismissal rate (Min 10 innings, all cases):
All-round performances:
Overall (see criteria below):
Starc and Holder have the best records. Would they be the true masters of pink-ball cricket?
Match performances (Min 50 and 5wi):
Holder again!
AND FINALLY:
Lowest team innings (under 100 runs all out):
No prizes for guessing which team has the lowest score.
Highest team innings (300 and above):
Many tall scores here (notably Pakistan’s 450 in the 4th innings). India needed only 300-odd to win against Bangladesh, and less than 150 more recently.