200+ scores for and against India

RG Sharma made the 54th score of 200 and above in a Test for India. These include 3 of 300+ and 51 from 200-299. Kohli has the most such scores (7), although Sehwag has the highest scores both inside and outside India. Outside Asia, we go quite far down until we reach Tendulkar’s 241* at Sydney.

The first such score was Umrigar’s 223 in 1955, equalled in the next month by Mankad and then surpassed by him with 231 which remained the record until Gavaskar’s 236* in 1983.This was surpassed by VVS Laxman’s 281 in 2001, Sehwag’s 309 in 2004 and again by him in 2008.

The highest in a win is 309 by Sehwag, in a loss 201* by Sehwag and in a draw 319 by (who else) Sehwag. An unique triple.

Now we see who did the same against India:

4 triple centuries and 47 from 200-299.

McCullum and Ponting have each done this 3 times against India.

The highest score here is Jayasuriya’s 340, the highest outside Asia is Gooch’s 333 and the highest in India is M Jayawardene’s 275.

The best in a victory is 333 by Gooch, in a defeat 242 by Ponting and in a draw 340 by Jayasuriya. In fact, Ponting’s 242 is the highest in any Test defeat.

More of “Make mine a double”

As we have seen, only three batsmen have made their maiden Test century a triple century. There are many more whose maiden century was a double century. Fortunately this topic was recently mentioned in Steven Lynch’s Cricinfo column. Here is the list (as of May 2015):

A long list of 35 players, indeed. But there are many subtleties involved. In some cases the double century was the only Test century the player made. And a few of these double centuries were made on debut. In two cases the double century on debut was the only century by that player. We take a further look at the above table.

When we have a list of centuries made by each player, we can further analyze how these maiden centuries were significant. The tables below give some comments for each of the above players, bringing out some relatively rare occurrences: