India vs England 2016: 5th Test, Day 3 Stats - KL Rahul emulates Mohammad Azharuddin

Resuming from their overnight score of 60/0, India needed a strong start to the day in order to mount an effective response to England’s formidable first-innings total of 477. KL Rahul and Parthiv Patel gave them exactly that by making the visitors toil hard for their first breakthrough.

Upon adding more than 150 runs for the opening wicket, the pugnacious batsman began to show signs of fatigue that usually accompanies a wicket-keeper spending the better part of two days on the field. After he perished, England inflicted serious damage by prising out the key scalps of Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli in quick succession.

But Rahul brought India back into the contest with a stellar knock. Though he fell just one run short of what could have been his maiden double ton, the 24-year-old helped cut down the deficit to 86 runs (with still 6 wickets in hand) at the end of the day. Karun Nair, who had put on 161 runs for the fourth wicket, remained unbeaten on 71 alongside Murali Vijay.

Here are some interesting statistics from the third day’s play.

1 – This is the first time in this series that Kohli has been dismissed for less than 40 runs in an innings.

1 – Rahul followed up his 158 against West Indies in Jamaica during July with 199 here to become the first Test opener to make two 150-plus scores in 2016. Azhar Ali (302*) and Joe Burns (170) had managed one such score this year.

2 – Rahul has become only the second Indian batsman in Test history to be dismissed for 199 after Mohammad Azharuddin against Sri Lanka in the 1986 Kanpur match. Overall, he is the ninth batsman to be sent back one run short of 200.

4 – Instances of both Indian openers going past 50 in a Test innings since the start of 2011. The previous such instance had come against Bangladesh in Fatullah last year.

4 – Test centuries for Rahul which is the most by an Indian opener since the start of 2015. Vijay has scored 3 tons with Shikhar Dhawan managing 2 and Pujara registering 1 hundred.

4 – Only four Indian batsmen have scored more runs in a Test innings at this venue than Rahul’s 199. They are Virender Sehwag (319), Sunil Gavaskar (236*), MS Dhoni (224) and Gundappa Viswanath (222).

5 – Rahul has become only the fifth Indian opener to register two 150-plus scores in the same calendar year. The others in the illustrious club are Sunil Gavaskar (2 times), Virender Sehwag (5), Gautam Gambhir (2) and Vijay (1).

5 – MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai has now seen five 150-plus scores by Indian openers which is the most among all venues. Both PCA Stadium in Mohali and Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad have witnessed four such scores.

6 – Each of Rahul’s six international centuries (across all formats) have come in a different country. Aside from scoring Test tons in Australia (Sydney), Sri Lanka (Colombo), West Indies (Jamaica) and India (Chennai), he also has an ODI hundred in Zimbabwe (Harare) and a T20I ton in USA (Florida).

31 – Number of Test innings since India have had a 100-run opening partnership in Tests. In the intervening period, their average opening stand had been 24.72 with just five 50-plus partnerships.

104 – Total runs from Rahul’s blade from five Test innings at home prior to this one. His average in India has skyrocketed from 20.80 to 50.50 after this knock.

152 – Runs added by Rahul and Patel for the first wicket which is the fifth highest by an Indian opening pair when opening for the first time together after Sehwag-Rahul Dravid (410), Dhawan-Vijay (289), Arun Lal-Gavaskar (156) and Wasim Jaffer-Dinesh Karthik (153).

192 – The previous highest score by an Indian opener against England at home had been by Budhi Kunderan, also in the same city but in a different venue. Across matches both home and away, Rahul’s 199 is the second highest such score after Gavaskar’s 221 at The Oval in 1979.