20 Major Records broken and created at Kotla: The home team has been absolutely phenomenal as they thrash the dominant side in Tests to a whitewash. The young Indian team led by aggressive Virat Kohli defeated the Proteas in the fourth Test in Delhi by 337 runs to jump 3 steps ahead in the ICC Rankings and occupy the 2nd spot. The series ended on an interesting note as the determined Proteas batsmen almost drew the spectacular Test match after block fest.
Here are the records from the fourth Test.
- India set South Africa 481 to win. This was the highest target India have ever set against South Africa.
- Ashwin grabbed his 5th Man-of-the-Series award. He equalled Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar, who too have five awards. India have won six Test series since Ashwin’s debut and he has got the Man-of-the-Series award in 5 of those.
- Rahane smashed his first ton in home soil, continued his form in the second innings to score another one. He became only the fifth Indian batsman after Vijay Hazare, Sunil Gavaskar (who did it three times), Rahul Dravid (who did it twice), and Virat Kohli to score hundreds in both the innings of a Test.
- Feroz Shah Kotla is the only ground (more than 10 matches) where in all the 33 instances, a captain winning the toss has opted to bat.
- This is India”s biggest win in terms of runs (377). Earlier they defeated Australia by 320 runs in 2008.
- It has been 87 years since a pace bowler bowled at an economy rate of 0.42 in an innings (min 10 overs). Umesh Yadav did that and his figures were 21-16-9-3.
- The strike rate for Hashim Amla in this innings was 10.24 which is conveniently the least for a batsman with 200 plus balls. AB de Villiers’ strike rate of 14.47 is also the least in a Test Innings for a batsman who had faced at least 250 balls in an innings.
- India’s spin trio has the best strike rate for all bowlers in Tests in 2015. Amit Mishra-33.2, Ravichandran Ashwin – 36.4, Ravindra Jadeja – 36.7.
- Ashwin has the most 5-wicket hauls by an Indian bowler in a calendar year – 7 which is also the most in world this year. He has also the joint-highest 10-wicket haul in this year (2) with Rangana Herath.
- Rohit Sharma”s first duck in India is his fourth in Tests. He has posted two ducks vs South Africa (both golden ducks) and one each vs New Zealand and Australia.
- India climbed to the No. 2 spot in the ICC Test rankings after the win surpassing Australia and Pakistan. They have now 110 points and are placed behind South Africa, who sit at the top with 114 points despite the series loss.
- This has been JP Duminy’s worst ever Test series of his career so far averaging 10.62.
- Rahane became the only Indian batsman to post at least one score in excess of 90 in each of his last seven series. He scored 127 and 100 not out in this series, 126 against Sri Lanka at Colombo, 98 against Bangladesh at Fatullah, 147 against Australia at Melbourne, 103 against England at Lord’s, 118 against New Zealand at Hamilton and 96 against South Africa at Durban.
- Jadeja bowled 33 maiden overs off 46 Overs – easily the most maiden overs for any bowler in Test History (max. 50 overs).In this period he bowled 17 consecutive maidens and missed Bapu Nadkarni’s record of 21 consecutive maidens by four overs.
- Â The three slowest partnerships (minimum 200 balls) in Test history were recorded in this match. Bavuma-Amla -> 44 (232), Amla-AB -> 27 (253), Faf-AB -> 35 (211).
- Rahane’s seven sixes in the match are joint second most by an Indian in a Test. Navjot Singh Sidhu hit eight sixes against Sri Lanka in Lucknow in 1994. Virender Sehwag against Sri Lanka at Brabourne in 2009 and Harbhajan Singh against New Zealand in Hyderabad in 2010 are the other two occasions of seven sixes in a Test.
- India bowled 89 maiden overs in the second innings of this Test – the most ever in an innings in Test history.
- 87 Wickets taken by spinners in this series which is the second-most for spinners in a Test series of 4 matches.Border-Gavaskar Series in India in 2012 has the most wickets for spinners (92).
- South Africa’s total of143 in this innings after batting 143.1 overs is the lowest in the history of Test Cricket for any team (min 110 overs).
- 25 runs made by Hashim Amla in this innings playing 244 balls – the least made by a batsman with at least 200 balls faced.
