Fastest fifties in Test cricket

Fighting a lost battle in the second Test at Mirpur Mohammad Ashraful decided that enough was enough and put Indian bowling attack to sword.Almost all bowlers were hit to all corners of the ground in the highly entertaining innings of 67 which lasted for only 46 minutes. Ashraful faced 41 balls in all and hit 12 fours and two sixes. During the course of his innings Ashraful raced to his fifty in just 27 minutes and off 26 balls.

Ashraful's fifty is now the fastest ever in Test cricket history in terms of minutes and second (joint) fastest in terms of balls. The accompanying tables have the details.
Fastest Test fifties (by minutes)

Mins  Batsman                Countries    Venue      Season  
27   Mohammad Ashraful (67)  Ban v Ind   Mirpur      2007
28   JT Brown (140)          Eng v Aus   Melbourne   1894-95
29   SA Durani (61*)         Ind v Eng   Kanpur      1963-64
30   EAV Williams (72)       WI  v Eng   Bridgetown  1947-48
30   BR Taylor (124)         NZ  v WI    Auckland    1968-69

Fastest Test fifties (by balls)

Balls  Batsman  Countries  Venue  Season
24   JH Kallis (54)          SA  v Zim   Cape Town   2004-05
26   Shahid Afridi (58)      Pak v Ind   Bangalore   2004-05
26   Mohammad Ashraful (67)  Ban v Ind   Mirpur      2007
27   Mohammad Yousuf (50)    Pak v SA    Cape Town   2002-03

Notes:
- Australia's VT Trumper is shown at some places with a time of 22 minutes for his fifty during his innings of 63 against South Africa at Johannesburg in 1902-03. However Trumper took no less than 45 minutes for his fifty.

- Some sources show England's IT Botham with a 26-ball fifty against India at Delhi in 1981-82. Botham actually took 28 balls to do so.

Two world records for Dhoni

Wicketkeeper batsman MS Dhoni got himself a couple of world records by scoring an unbeaten 139 in the third and final Afro-Asia Cup match on Sunday.

Coming into bat with Asia XI tottering at 72 for five, Dhoni added 218 runs (off just 178 balls) with skipper Mahela Jayawardene for the sixth wicket establishing a new partnership record for this wicket in one-day internationals.

The previous record of 165 runs was set by Australia's Brad Haddin and Mike Hussey against West Indies at Kuala Lumpur in September 2006 and also between New Zealand's Brian McCullum and Craig McMillan against Australia at Hamilton in February 2007.

Dhoni then went on to surpass the record of scoring the highest individual innings by a number seven batsman in one-day internationals. Interestingly the previous record was set just four days ago by Shaun Pollock in the first match of this series.

Pollock had broken the record of India's Mohammad Kaif. Another Indian has got it back, though while doing so he was representing Asia XI and not Team India.

Highest innings by number 7 batsman in ODIs

Runs      Batsman           SR   Opponent    Venue            Date 
139* MS Dhoni (Asia XI)  143.29 Africa XI    Chennai       10 Jun 2007
130  SM Pollock (Afr XI) 118.18 Asia XI      Bangalore     06 Jun 2007
111* M Kaif (Ind)         99.10 Zimbabwe     Colombo (RPS) 14 Sep 2002
100* JM Kemp (SA)        112.35 India        Cape Town     26 Nov 2006
100  HP T'ratne (SL)      94.33 West Indies  Sharjah       16 Oct 1995
94*  SS Dighe (Ind)       97.91 West Indies  Harare        07 Jul 2001
89   Abdul Razzaq (Pak)  222.50 New Zealand  Wellington    17 Jan 2004
88*  MEK Hussey (Aus)    157.14 New Zealand  Christchurch  10 Dec 2005
87*  M Kaif (Ind)        116.00 England      Lord's        13 Jul 2002
87   Kapil Dev (Ind)     135.93 West Indies  Nagpur        08 Dec 1987
86*  BB McCullum (NZ)     94.50 Australia    Hamilton      20 Feb 2007
86   Wasim Akram (Pak)   113.15 Australia    Melbourne     23 Feb 1990
86   JR Murray (WI)      111.68 England      The Oval      26 May 1995
85   SB Styris (NZ)      104.93 West Indies  Gros Islet    08 Jun 2002