India's biggest wins in Test cricket

Rajneesh Gupta presents all the numbers on India's biggest Test triumphs, Virat's victories and Ashwin's achievements.

India's victory in the second Test at Nagpur by an innings and 239 runs is India's 40th win by innings margin.

Eleven of thesse innings victories have come against Sri Lanka -- the most for India against any opponent.

The innings win at Nagpur is the most for India along with the victory against Bangladesh by an identical margin in Mirpur in 2007.

India's biggest wins in Test cricket

(by an innings margin)

Margin	Vs	Venue	Year
Innings and 239 runs	Bangladesh	Mirpur	2007
Innings and 239 runs	Sri Lanka	Nagpur	2017
Innings and 219 runs	Australia	Kolkata	1998
Innings and 198 runs	New Zealand	Nagpur	2010
Innings and 171 runs	Sri Lanka	Pallekele	2017

The Nagpur win is the 20th for Virat Kohli as captain.

Now only M S Dhoni (27) and Sourav Ganguly (21) have won more Tests as India's captain.

Kohli's win percentage is much higher than Dhoni and Ganguly's.

 

India's most successful captains

At least 5 wins)

	Tests	Won	Lost	Drawn	Win%
Virat Kohli	31	20	3	8	64.51
M S Dhoni	60	27	18	15	45
Sourav Ganguly	49	21	13	15	42.86
Rahul Dravid	25	8	6	11	32
Mohammad Azharuddin	47	14	14	19	29.79
Bishan Singh Bedi	22	6	11	5	27.27
M A K 'Tiger' Pataudi	40	9	19	12	22.50
Sunil Gavaskar	47	9	8	30	19.15

Only two skippers have more wins than Virat after the first 31 Tests as captain.

 

Most successful captains in Test cricket

(after 31 Tests)

	Won	Lost	Drawn	Tied	Win%
Ricky Ponting	23	3	5	0	74.19
Steve Waugh	21	5	5	0	67.74
Virat Kohli	20	3	8	0	64.51
Michael Vaughan	19	5	7	0	61.29
Mike Brearley	18	4	9	0	58.06
Vivian Richards	18	3	10	0	58.06

Ravichandran Ashwin ended the Test with Lahiru Gamage's wicket, his 300th Test wicket.

The off-spinner is now the quickest in Test cricket to reach this milestone, beating the great Australian fast bowler, Dennis Lillee.

 

Fastest to 300 wickets in Tests

Tests	Player
54	Ravichandran Ashwin
56	Dennis Lillee
58	Muttiah Muralitharan
61	Richard Hadlee
61	Malcolm Marshall
61	Dale Steyn
63	Shane Warne
63	Allan Donald

 

Fastest Indians to 300 wickets in Tests

Tests	Player
54	Ravichandran Ashwin
66	Anil Kumble
72	Harbhajan Singh
83	Kapil Dev
89	Zaheer Khan

Ashwin has now taken 50 Test wickets in 2017.

In doing so, he became the first Indian and only the third bowler in Test history to take 50 wickets in THREE consecutive years.

Ashwin had also taken 50 wickets in 2015 and 2016.

 

50 Test wickets in three consecutive years

Bowler	Year	Tests	Wickets	Average	5I	10M
Shane Warne	1993	16	72	23.56	2	0
	1994	10	70	18.20	6	2
	1995	12	52	24.11	1	1
Muttiah Muralitharan	2000	10	75	19.50	7	3
	2001	12	80	21.23	7	4
	2002	8	55	17.80	5	2
Ravichandran Ashwin	2015	9	62	17.20	7	2
	2016	12	72	23.90	8	3
	2017	10	52	25.55	2	0

At the end of the Nagpur Test, Ashwin's wicket tally under Virat Kohli stands at 182, the highest for any bowler under any captain for India.

Anil Kumble, who took 179 wickets under Mohammad Azharuddin, held the previous record.

 

Most wickets under a captain (for India)

Wickets	Bowler (Captain)	Tests	Average
182	Ravichandran Ashwin (Virat Kohli)	30	22.16
179	Anil Kumble (Mohammad Azharuddin)	36	24.96
177	Harbhajan Singh (Sourav Ganguly)	37	26.85
172	Kapil Dev (Sunil Gavaskar)	45	29.65
167	Anil Kumble (Sourav Ganguly)	31	28.08
152	Ishant Sharma (M S Dhoni)	47	36.66

India's win at Nagpur is their 32nd win this year across all formats (Tests/ODIs/T20Is) -- the most they have ever recorded in a single year.

India had registered 31 wins from as many games last year.

 

Most wins for India in a single year (across formats)

Year	Matches	Won	Lost	Tied	Drawn/No Result
2017	46	32	11	0	3
2016	46	31	11	0	4
2010	48	29	16	0	3
2013	43	29	11	0	3
2007	55	28	18	1	8