Australia follow-on after 17 years

On the third day of the fourth Test in Nottingham, England brought an end to Australia's long-lasting streak of not facing a follow-on.

The last team to enforce follow-on on Australia was Pakistan under Javed Miandad at Karachi in September 1988. Australia went on to lose that Test by an innings margin.

Since then, Australia have played a record 190 Tests in almost 17 years without suffering the ignominy of following-on even once.

The following table gives details of longest streaks of Tests a side has gone between following-on.South Africa's instance is inclusive of the 22 years between 1970 and 1992 when they played no Test cricket.

Tests Country            Sequence                Period 
                                               (Yrs-Months)
190 Australia   v Pak,Faisalabad,Sep 1988 to   16-11
                v Eng,Manchester,Aug 2005
75 India        v NZ,Dunedin,Feb 1990 to       11- 1
                v Aus,Mumbai WS,March 2001
72 South Africa v Aus,Durban,Jan 1967 to       32-11
                v Eng,Port Elizabeth, Dec 1999
69 Pakistan     v Aus,Brisbane,Nov 1983 to      9- 5
                v WI,Port-of-Spain,Apr 1993 
68 England      v Aus,Sydney,Feb 1898 to       22-10
                v Aus,Sydney,Dec 1920
63 West Indies  v Eng, Bridgetown, Apr 1992 to  7- 8
                v NZ, Hamilton,Dec 1999

Gilchrist becomes leading run-scoring wicket-keeper in Test cricket

Australia’s Adam Gilchrist became the leading run-scorer wicket-keeper in the history of Test cricket during the just concluded Manchester Test against England. Gilchrist ended the Test with a tally of 4,572 runs to go ahead of England’s Alec Stewart’s run-aggregate of 4,540 runs in 82 Tests (although Stewart played in 133 Tests, he kept wickets in 82 Tests only).

Interestingly Gilchrist needed 11 Tests and 42 innings fewer than Stewart to surpass his aggregate. Gilchrist now holds the records of scoring maximum runs, hitting most hundreds. Gilchrist’s batting average is also the highest for any wicket-keeper who has aggregated more than 500 runs in a career. Zimbabwean Andy Flower is the only other wicket-keeper to end up with 10 or more hundreds and a batting average of 50-plus.

The accompanying table lists the leading run scoring wicket-keepers in Test cricket:

Runs  Keeper        For  Tests Ave    100s 50s
4572  AC Gilchrist  Aus   71   53.79   15  20
4540  AJ Stewart    Eng   82   34.92    6  23
4404  A Flower      Zim   55   53.71   12  23
4389  APE Knott     Eng   95   32.75    5  30
4356  IA Healy      Aus  119   27.40    4  22
3633  RW Marsh      Aus   96   26.52    3  16
3146  PJL Dujon     WI    79   31.46    5  16
3007  MV Boucher    SA    84   30.68    4  18
2759  SMH Kirmani   Ind   88   27.05    2  12
2611  FM Engineer   Ind   46   31.08    2  16
2581  Moin Khan     Pak   66   28.68    4  14
2577  RD Jacobs     WI    65   28.32    3  14
2479  AC Parore     NZ    67   26.95    2  11
2439  TG Evans      Eng   91   20.50    2   8
2387  LEG Ames      Eng   44   43.40    8   7
2336  JHB Waite     SA    49   30.34    4  16
2300  KC S'kkara    SL    35   41.82    6   7
2010  Imtiaz Ahmed  Pak   38   30.45    3  11

Most sixes hit against Australia in a Test series

The five sixes hit in England’s second innings of Manchester Test took their series aggregate of sixes to 26 (four sixes were hit in the first Test at Lord’s,16 in the second Test at Birmingham and six in the third Test at Manchester).

This is now the most number of sixes hit by any side against Australia in a Test series. The previous record was of 23 sixes hit by South Africa in four match series in 1966-67.

The following table lists the most sixes hit against Australia in a Test series:

6s For           Season    Venue       Tests
26 England       2005      England       3#
23 South Africa  1966-67   South Africa  5
22 South Africa  1969-70   South Africa  4 
22 India         1997-98   India         3 
22 West Indies   2002-03   West Indies   4
21 New Zealand   1999-00   New Zealand   3

# still continuing

A world record for Muralitharan

The wicket of India's Irfan Pathan in the opening match of Indian Oil Cup tri-series helped Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan register a new world record.

Pathan's wicket was the 368th wicket for Muralitharan in one-day internationals. He also has taken 549 wickets in Tests to register a combined aggregate of 917 wickets in international cricket.

With the wicket of debutant Venugopal Rao he extended his tally to 918, the highest combined aggregate for any bowler in international cricket -- toppling Pakistan's Wasim Akram from the apex position.

The following table lists the leading wicket-takers in all forms of international cricket -- Tests, ODIs and Twenty20:

Total Bowler           For Tests  ODIs Twenty20 
918   M Muralitharan   SL   549   369    - 
916   Wasim Akram      Pak  414   502    - 
880   Shane Warne      Aus  589   291    - 
836   Glenn McGrath    Aus  508   323    5 
789   Waqar Younis     Pak  373   416    - 
784   Anil Kumble      Ind  461   323    - 
746   Courtney Walsh   WI   519   227    - 

Note: The performances in Tsunami relief match between a World XI and Asian XI have not been taken into account.