Nazmul Hossain, became 40th player from Bangladesh to play Test cricket.At 17 years 73 days he is the fourth youngest to appear in a Test for Bangladesh after Mohammed Sharif,Talha Jubair and Mohammad Ashraful.
Nazmul was,in fact, making his first-class debut also. He thus became only the second Bangladeshi to make his first-class and Test debut in the same match after Mashrafe Mortaza.
Nazmul is the third player to make his f-c and Test debut in the same match against India. The other two are New Zealander Graham Vivian (at Calcutta in 1964-65) and Zimbabwean Ujesh Ranchod (at Delhi in 1992-93).
Rahul Dravid (145*) emulated Australia’s Steve Waugh, South Africa’s Gary Kirsten and fellow teammate Sachin Tendulkar in scoring at least a century against all other 9 Test playing countries.
Dravid, however, became the first batsman in Test annals to have recorded hundreds in all the ten Test-playing countries. This is how Dravid has performed in different countries:
100s Location Mts Inns Runs Hs Ave
6 in India 39 67 3010 222 50.17
3 in England 6 9 789 217 87.67
2 in New Zealand 4 8 452 190 64.57
1 in West Indies 10 15 764 144* 63.67
1 in Australia 7 14 712 233 64.73
1 in Sri Lanka 6 10 419 107 46.56
1 in South Africa 5 10 379 148 42.11
1 in Pakistan 3 4 309 270 77.25
1 in Zimbabwe 3 5 300 118 75.00
1 in Bangladesh 3 4 214 145* 107.00
18 TOTAL 86 146 7348 270 57.85
Another remarkable feature of Dravid’s career is his awesome ‘away’ performance. He is among the very few batsmen who have better batting average in away Tests – in fact a remarkable 14 points more than his average in home Tests! Dravid has scored his runs on foreign soil at an average of 64.74, which is the highest among all the contemporary batsmen. In alltime list, Dravid is placed fifth after Don Bradman,England’s Ken Barrington,Eddie Paynter and Wally Hammond.
Gautam Gambhir (139) scored his maiden century in Test Cricket. His previous highest was 96 against South Africa at Kanpur last month.
The second wicket partnership of 259 runs between Dravid and Gambhir is India's best against Bangladesh for any wicket. The pair obliterated the 164-run partnership between Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly in the Dhaka Test last week. Incidentally India's previous highest second wicket partnership against Bangladesh was 53 (unbroken) between Shiv Sunder Das and Rahul Dravid at Dhaka in November 2000.
The Gambhir-Dravid partnership is India’s highest for the second wicket abroad. This expunges the 237-run partnership betweeen Pankaj Roy and Vijay Manjrekar against West Indies at Kingston in 1952-53.
India became only the second side after Australia to post 200-plus partnerships against all other 9 Test playing countries.
Day 2:
India’s total of 540 is their highest against Bangladesh bettering the 526 at Dhaka in the previous Test.
India made 500 (or more) runs in successive innings for the seventh time in Test cricket. During the 1992-93 season India had put up three totals of 500-plus in consecutive innings – twice against England and once against Zimbabwe.The following table gives details of instances of 500-plus totals posted by India in successive innings:
Score Overs Vs Venue Season
560-6d 165 Eng Madras 1992-93
591 189.3 Eng Bombay WS 1992-93
536-7d 132 Zim Delhi 1992-93
566-6d 142.2 WI Delhi 1978-79
644-7d 189.4 WI Kanpur 1978-79
517-5d 170 Aus Bombay WS 1986-87
676-6 167.1 SL Kanpur 1986-87
511 161.5 SL Lucknow 1993-94
541-6d 161 SL Bangalore 1993-94
657-7d 178 Aus Kolkata 2000-01
501 165 Aus Chennai 2000-01
628-8d 180.1 Eng Headingley 2002
508 170 Eng The Oval 2002
526 136.4 BD Dhaka 2004-05
540 148.2 BD Chittagong 2004-05
India have now made 500-plus total in three consecutive innings of overseas matches – 600 v Pakistan at Rawalpindi in April 2004,
526 v Bangladesh at Dhaka in first Test of this series and 540 here. In fact India have now posted 500-plus total five times in last six overseas Tests.
Rahul Dravid (160) has now made five scores of 150-plus on foreign soil equalling Sunil Gavaskar’s tally. Now only Sachin Tendulkar (7) is ahead of him among the Indian batsmen.
Sourav Ganguly (88) became most prolific run-scoring Indian captain in overseas matches. He surpassed Mohammad Azharuddin's run-aggregate of 1,517 (ave.37.93) in 27 Tests overseas as captain. Amongst the Indian captains with a minimum of 500 runs overseas as Captain, only Sachin Tendulkar has the better average than Ganguly.
Ganguly has now scored three fifties in successive innings against Bangladesh. He had made 84 at Dhaka in November 2000 and 71 at Dhaka in the first Test of this series.
The 75-run partnership between Sourav Ganguly and Harbhajan Singh is the highest for ninth wicket for any side against Bangladesh obliterating the 56 run-partnership between Mluleki Nkala and Brian Murphy for Zimbabwe at Bulawayo QSC in 2000-01.
Incidentally the previous highest ninth wicket partnership for India against Bangladesh was a paltry 25 between Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh in the first Test at Dhaka.
Day 3:
The wicket of Aftab Ahmed (in first innings) was 900th for Anil Kumble in first class cricket. He was playing his 192nd first-class match. Kumble became only the fifth Indian after Bishan Singh Bedi (1,560), S Venkataraghavan (1,390), Bhagwat Chandrasekhar (1,063) and Erapally Prasanna (957) to have done so.
Zaheer Khan completed his century of wickets when he had Manjural Islam Rana LBW in first innings. He became the fourth Indian pacer after Kapil Dev (434 in 131 Tests), Javagal Srinath (236 in 67) and Karsan Ghavri (109 in 39) to capture 100 or more wickets. Ghavri’s tally though includes a few wickets as a spinner. Overall, he is the 15th Indian bowler to do so.
Mohammad Ashraful (158*) made the highest individual score by a Bangladeshi batsman bettering the 145 by Aminul Islam also against India at Dhaka in November 2000. Ashraful’s previous personal best was 114 against Sri Lanka at Colombo SSC in 2001-02.
Ashraful also became the second batsman from Bangladesh to score more than one Test century after Habibul Bashar, who has three centuries to his credit.
Ashraful completed 1,000 runs in Test cricket when his score reached 49. He became third batsman from Bangladesh to do so after Habibul Bashar and Javed Omer.
Khaled Mashud became fourth Bangladeshi batsman to aggregate 1,000 runs in Test cricket when his score reached 20 in first innings.
The fourth wicket partnership of 70 between Habibul Bashar and Ashraful is Bangladesh's best for this wicket against India obliterating the 65-run partnership between Aminul Islam and Akram Khan at Dhaka in 2000-01.
The fifth wicket stand of 115 between Ashraful and Aftab Ahmed is Bangladesh's first century partnership for any wicket against India. Bangladesh’s previous highest partnership was of 93 runs for the seventh wicket between Aminual Islam and Khaled Mashud at Dhaka in 2000-01. Incidentally the previous highest fifth wicket partnership for Bangladesh against India was a paltry 21 between Aminul Islam and Al Sahariar at Dhaka in 2000-01.
The tenth wicket partnership of 21 between Ashraful and Nazmul Hossain in first innings was a record for Bangladesh against India, bettering the 15 between Bikash Das and Hasibul Hossain at Dhaka in 2000-01. However Talha Jubair and Nazmul Hossain by adding 34 runs without being separated in the second innings set a new record.
Bangladesh’s total of 333 is their highest ever total at Chittagong in seven Tests, bettering their 301 against Zimbabwe in 2001-02.
Sourav Ganguly provided the 24th instance of an Indian captain asking the opponents to follow-on. It was however only the sixth such occasion on foreign soil.
India have now enforced follow-on against all other Test playing countries excepting South Africa.
Irfan Pathan (5-32) produced his third five-wicket haul - all against Bangladesh.
In a day when 16 wickets fell, five Bangladesh batsmen - Aftab Ahmed,Mohammad Rafique, Habibul Bashar,Manjural Islam Rana and Khaled Mashud – suffered the ignominy of getting out TWICE on the same day. Manjural Islam Rana, infact, joined the select band of cricketers who got a pair on the same day. There has been only one better performance for India in this regard. Six Pakistani batsmen were dismissed twice on the third day of Delhi Test in 1952-53, which was also Pakistan’s first ever Test match. At Bangalore in 1993-94 five Sri Lankan batsmen were out twice on the third day of the Test.
Manjural Islam Rana got his first pair in Test cricket. He became second Bangladeshi after Rajin Saleh to get a pair against India.
Day 4:
The victory by an innings and 83 runs gave India their third win in a row on foreign soil – their best sequence overseas. Interestingly all three wins have come by an innings margin - by innings & 131 runs v Pakistan at Rawalpindi, by innings & 140 runs v Bangladesh at Dhaka and by innings & 83 runs v Bangladesh here at Chittagong.
India registered their 23rd win on foreign soil – ninth under Ganguly’s captaincy. No other Indian captain has won more than three Tests on foreign soil.
The victory was India’s sixth in the year 2004, which equals their best performance in a calendar year. In 2002 also India won six Tests, but then India played 16 Tests as against 12 in 2004.
Bangladesh suffered their 31st loss in Test cricket in the 34th Test. Of these 20 have been lost by innings. In fact they have lost their last five Test matches by an innings margin.
Irfan Pathan ended the series with 18 wickets to his name. His tally of the wickets is the highest for an Indian speedster in a two match series. The previous record was of 16 wickets held by Chetan Sharma against England in 1986 (that series consisted of three matches but Chetan played in only 2 Tests).
Infact Irfan’s performance is the second best for any Indian bowler in a two match series. Only Anil Kumble has taken more wickets than Irfan – 21 v Pakistan in 1998-99.
Before the series against Bangladesh, Irfan had taken 21 wickets in 8 Tests at an average of 41.19. After the series Pathan has taken 39 wickets at an average of 27.66 – an improvement of 13.53 points !
Harbhajan Singh has now taken 189 wickets and is at level with Erapally Prasanna as the most successful off-spinner for India.
India won both Tests of the series on the fourth day. Out of the 34 Tests Bangladesh have played, only six have gone into the fifth day (excluding three where at least one day’s play was lost due to rain etc.).
Extras contributed 21.77% in Bangladesh’s second innings total - fifth highest contribution made by extras in an all-out innings in Test cricket. The accompanying table has the details:
% Ex Score For Vs Venue Season
25.29 43 170 Eng WI St. John's 1985-86
23.75 38 160 NZ Pak Lahore 1990-91
23.37 68 291 Pak WI Bridgetown 1976-77
22.93 36 157 NZ WI Auckland 1986-87
21.77 27 124 BD Ind Chittagong 2004-05
21.60 46 213 Ind WI Port-of-Spain1988-89
21.37 53 248 Aus WI Georgetown 1990-91
20.63 52 252 Eng WI Trent Bridge 1980
20.26 46 227 Eng Pak Lord's 1982
20.00 39 195 WI Pak Faisalabad 1990-91
14.44% of Bangladesh runs in the match came in the form of extras. This is the highest percentage of extras conceded by India in a match where opponents lost all 20 wickets. The previous record was of 13.57% extras which was made in the Chandigarh Test against Sri Lanka in 1990-91. India conceded 38 extras in Sri Lanka’s match total of 280 (8 and 30 extras in Sri Lanka’s innings of 82 and 198 respectively).
Bangladesh were bundled out for 124 in 26.4 overs (160 balls) in second innings. This is the second lowest COMPLETED innings against India in terms of balls. India had dismissed England for 102 in only 158 balls in second innings of Mumbai Test in 1981-82.
Talha Jubair (31) top scored for Bangladesh in second innings. This provided only the sixth instance of a number 11 batsman top-scoring in a completed innings. This was the first such instance against India. The last # 11 batsman to top score in an innings was Sri Lankan Jayantha Amerasinghe (v New Zealand at Kandy in 1983-84).
Mohammad Ashraful won Man of the Match award. He now holds the unique record of winning Man of the Match award twice for a side that lost a Test by innings margin. Ashraful had also shared the award with Muttiah Muralitharan in his debut Test in Colombo SSC in 2001-02, which Bangladesh lost by an innings and 137 runs.
