Thirimanne the bunny, and Ashwin-Jadeja v Kumble-Harbhajan

The stats highlights from the opening day of the Nagpur Test include the Ashwin-Thirimanne history, the Jadeja-Ashwin partnership, Karunaratne’s prolific 2017, and more

S Rajesh24-Nov-2017A no-contestWhen R Ashwin dismissed Lahiru Thirimanne in the morning session, not many would have been surprised. After all, this had already happened 11 times previously in all international cricket – six times in ODIs, five times in Tests, and once in T20Is. It is the most times he has dismissed any batsman, and the most times any bowler has dismissed Thirimanne in international cricket.Since the start of 2010, only two bowler-batsman pairs are higher in this list: Mahela Jayawardene-Saeed Ajmal, and Mohammad Hafeez-Dale Steyn. Both Thirimanne and Ashwin feature once more in the top five – Thirimanne has been Anderson’s bunny as well, while Ashwin has had plenty of success against David Warner as well.In terms of frequency of dismissal, though, the Ashwin-Thirimanne one is better than any of the other entries in the top five. Of the 18 times that Ashwin has bowled to Thirimanne in internationals, he has dismissed him 12 times, which is a frequency of one dismissal every 1.5 innings.

The Ashwin-Jadeja partnershipFor the 24th time in a home Test, Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja were a part of India’s team, and as usual, they wreaked havoc on the opposition batsmen, combining to take 7 for 123 to bundle Sri Lanka out for 205. In these 24 Tests, they have combined to take 273 wickets at 20.94, with 22 five-wicket hauls between them. In these 24 matches, these two bowlers have taken 64% of India’s bowler-wickets; the other bowlers have combined to take 155 scalps at 33.35.

Those numbers compare favourably with those of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh. In the 34 Tests they played together for India, they took 356 wickets at 27.23, with 30 five-fors. They combined to take 66% of the total bowler-wickets in those Tests, and, like Ashwin and Jadeja, were significantly better than the other bowlers combined.

Karunaratne’s special yearSri Lanka would have been much happier had Dimuth Karunaratne gone on to a bigger score than his 51, but those runs were enough to make him only the second batsman to get to 1000 Test runs in 2017, after Dean Elgar. Elgar has 1097 runs in 20 innings, compared to Karunaratne’s 1000 in 23. Karunaratne has faced more deliveries than any other batsman in Tests this year, though – 2212 to Elgar’s 2162.

For Karunaratne, 2017 has been a watershed year: his previous best aggregate in any year was 769, from 21 innings in 2015. He has also been Sri Lanka’s leading Test batsman in 2017, in terms of runs, average and hundreds.

Chandimal’s 3000The top-scorer in Sri Lanka’s innings, Dinesh Chandimal, had a personal milestone to celebrate too, becoming the 13th Sri Lankan batsman reach 3000 Test runs. That would be a small crumb of comfort, though, given the way the team collapsed after winning the toss.