Numbers game: No stopping Ashwin, Kohli

Virat's 248 runs in the second Test, the highest by an Indian captain against England.
Ashwin, only the second Indian bowler to take 50 wickets in consecutive years.
Rajneesh Gupta looks at the numbers from the Vizag Test.

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After escaping with a draw in the opening Test at Rajkot, India bounced back in style, thrashing England by 246 runs in the second game at Visakhapatnam to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series.

The Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA cricket stadium in Visakhapatnam became India's 24th Test venue and overall 111th venue in Test cricket.

India have played their last three consecutive Tests at new venues -- Indore, Rajkot and Visakhapatnam.

Two Indian batsmen completed 3,000 runs during the Test -- Cheteshwar Pujara and Murali Vijay.

By taking 67 innings to reach this landmark Pujara became one of the quickest Indians to achieve the feat.

Check out the fastest to 3,000 Test runs for India:

	Innings
Virender Sehwag	55
Mohammad Azharuddin	64
Sunil Gavaskar	66
Gautam Gambhir	66
Sachin Tendulkar	67
Rahul Dravid	67
Cheteshwar Pujara	67

During England's first innings, off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin took his 50 wickets in Tests in the year, becoming the second bowler to do so after Sri Lankan left-arm spinner Rangana Herath.

Ashwin ended 2015 with 62 wickets.

He is only the second Indian bowler to take 50 wickets in consecutive years. Harbhajan Singh did so in 2001 and 2002.

Only two Indian bowlers have taken 50 wickets in a calendar year on more occasions than Ashwin.

50 Test wickets in a calendar year on most occasions for India:

Instances	Bowler	Year
3	Anil Kumble	1999, 2004, 2006
3	Harbhajan Singh	2001, 2002, 2008
2	Kapil Dev	1979, 1983
2	Ravichandran Ashwin	2015, 2016
1	Vinoo Mankad	1952
1	Bhagwat Chandrasekhar	1976
1	Zaheer Khan	2002

Kapil Dev holds the Indian record for most wickets in a year.

He took 75 wickets in 18 Tests in 1983.

With three Tests to go, Ashwin (62 wickets in 9 Tests) is in a good position to break Kapil's record.

50 Test wickets in a calendar year for India:

	Year	Matches	Balls	Runs	Wickets	Average	5 Wickets in an Innings	10 Wickets in a Match
Kapil Dev	1983	18	3,469	1,739	75	23.18	5	1
Kapil Dev	1979	17	3,553	1,699	74	22.95	5	0
Anil Kumble	2004	12	3,680	1,838	74	24.83	6	2
Harbhajan Singh	2002	13	3,567	1,463	63	23.22	5	0
Harbhajan Singh	2008	13	4,230	1,987	63	31.53	2	1
Ravichandran Ashwin	2015	9	2,260	1,067	62	17.20	7	2
Harbhajan Singh	2001	12	3,424	1,557	60	25.95	6	2
Anil Kumble	2006	12	3,798	1,910	57	33.50	2	0
Ravichandran Ashwin	2016	9	2,441	1,223	55	22.24	6	2
Anil Kumble	1999	10	3,491	1,461	54	27.05	4	2
Bhagwat Chandrasekhar	1976	11	3,139	1,458	52	28.03	3	0
Vinoo Mankad	1952	9	3,302	1,106	51	21.68	5	2
Zaheer Khan	2002	15	2,875	1,479	51	29.00	2	0

Ashwin has taken 5 wicket hauls against all seven countries he has played a Test against. He is yet to play a Test against Pakistan and Bangladesh.

His 5/67 in the first innings in Vizag is his 22nd 5 wicket haul in Tests.

Only three Indians have taken more 5 wicket hauls than Ashwin.

Indian bowlers with most 5 wicket innings hauls in Tests:

	5 Wickets in an Innings	Matches	Match/5WI
Anil Kumble	35	132	3.77
Harbhajan Singh	25	103	4.12
Kapil Dev	23	131	5.70
Ravichandran Ashwin	22	41	1.86
Bhagwat Chandrasekhar	16	58	3.63

Ashwin's 5 wicket haul supplemented his innings of 58 with the bat in India's first innings.

This was the 4th instance when Ashwin scored a 50 and took a 5-for in the same Test.

With this Ashwin equalled Kapil Dev's Indian record.

When Ashwin scored a 50 and took a 5 wickets in the same Test:

Performance	Vs	Venue	Season
103 and 5/156	West Indies	Mumbai	2011-2012
56 and 5/61	South Africa	Delhi	2015-2016
113 and 7/83	West Indies	North Sound	2016
58 and 5/67	England	Visakhapatnam	2016-2017

A 50 and a 5-for in the same Test for India on most occasions:

Instances	Player	Tests
4	Ravichandran Ashwin	41
4	Kapil Dev	131
2	Bhuvneshwar Kumar	15

England were bowled out for 255 in ther first innings -- exactly 200 runs behind India's first innings total.

Captain Virat Kohli opted against enforcing the follow. And not for the first time has he taken that decision. This was the third time Kohli did not enforce the follow-on despite being entitled to do so.

Interestingly, no other Indian captain has done so more than once!

Indian captains not enforcing the follow-on:

Opponent	Venue	Season	Lead	Captain	Result (for Ind)
New Zealand	Ahmedabad	1999-2000	275	Sachin Tendulkar	Drawn
Australia	Sydney	2003-2004	231	Sourav Ganguly	Drawn
England	The Oval	2007	319	Rahul Dravid	Drawn
Australia	Mohali	2008-2009	201	M S Dhoni	Won
South Africa	Delhi	2015-2016	213	Virat Kohli	Won
New Zealand	Indore	2016-2017	258	Virat Kohli	Won
England	Visakhapatnam	2016-2017	200	Virat Kohli	Won

Kohli added 81 to his first innings score of 167 -- taking his match tally to 248 -- the highest by an Indian captain against England.

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This is also the fourth highest by an Indian captain in a Test against any opponent.

Most runs in a Test by an Indian captain:

Runs	Batsman	Innings1	Innings2	Versus	Venue	Season
289	Sunil Gavaskar	107	182*	West Indies	Kolkata	1978-1979
278	Sunil Gavaskar	205	73	West Indies	Mumbai	1978-1979
256	Virat Kohli	115	141	Australia	Adelaide	2014-2015
248	Virat Kohli	167	81	England	Visakhapatnam	2016-2017
232	Sachin Tendulkar	217	15	New Zealand	Ahmedabad	1999-2000
228	Virat Kohli	211	17	New Zealand	Indore	2016-2017

Kohli has a special liking for Visakhapatnam's Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA cricket stadium.

The Indian captain's lowest score at this venue in six innings in international cricket is 65.

Kohli's love affair with Visakhapatnam:

Runs	Vs	Year	Format
118	Australia	2010	ODI
117	West Indies	2011	ODI
99	West Indies	2013	ODI
65	New Zealand	2016	ODI
167 and 81	England	2016	Test

Jayant Yadav, courtesy of his innings of 35 and 27 not out, became the 1st number 9 batsman to score 25 or more runs in both innings on debut.

Jayant is only the third Indian player to score 50 runs and take four wickets in his debut Test, joining Amar Singh (56 and 4/159) against England at Lord's in 1932 and Syed Abid Ali (66 and 7/116) against Australia at Adelaide in 1967-1968.

Mohammad Shami, who in the first innings became the fourth Indian player to hit a six off the very first ball of his innings, hit a six in the second innings as well (though not off the very first ball!).

In doing so, he became the first Indian number 11 batsman to hit a six in both innings of a Test.

James Anderson suffered the ignominy of bagging a king pair (getting out on a duck to the first ball faced in both innings) in the Test.

The last England player to do so was Ernie Haynes against South Africa at Cape Town in 1905-1906.

Anderson became the fourth player to bag a king pair against India.

King pairs against India:

Player	Venue	Season	Bowler
Gary Troup (New Zealand)	Wellington	1980-1981	Ravi Shastri
Adam Gilchrist (Australia)	Kolkata	2000-2001	Harbhajan Singh/Sachin Tendulkar
Javed Omar (Bangladesh)	Mirpur	2007	Zaheer Khan
James Anderson (England)	Visakhapatnam	2016-2017	Ravinchandran Ashwin/Jayant Yadav

Anderson aggregates 21 ducks in his Test career -- more than anyone else for England.

He moved ahead of Michael Atherton, Steve Harmison, Monty Panesar and Stuart Broad.

Anderson also holds the record of playing most (54) innings before his first duck for England!

The 10 LBW dismissals (5 in each innings) are the most for England in a Test.

The previous record was 9 against the West Indies at Lord's in 1984 and against Pakistan at Abu Dhabi in 2011-2012.

Ashwin's tally of 231 wickets is now the highest for any bowler after his first 41 Tests.

The previous Indian record was 185 held by Harbhajan Singh.

Most wickets after first 41 Tests:

	Wickets	Average	Strike Rate	5 Wickets in an Innings	10 Wickets in the Match
Ravichandran Ashwin (India)	231	24.65	50.50	22	6
Clarrie Grimmett (Australia)+	216	24.22	67.19	21	7
Waqar Younis (Pakistan)	216	21.08	39.27	19	4
Dale Steyn (South Africa)	211	23.13	39.21	14	4
Dennis Lillee (Australia)	209	24.27	52.86	15	5
Ian Botham (England)	202	21.21	48.06	17	4
Stuart MacGill (Australia)	200	27.65	52.56	12	2

+ Clarrie Grimmett played only 37 Tests.

India's victory margin of 246 runs is its biggest against England at home and second biggest in all Tests.

The defeat was also England's biggest ever in a Test in Asia.

India's biggest Test wins versus England (by run margin):

Margin	Venue	Season	Captain
279 runs	Leeds	1986	Kapil Dev
246 runs	Visakhapatnam	2016-2017	Virat Kohli
187 runs	Kolkata	1961-1962	Nari Contractor
140 runs	Bangalore	1976-1977	Bishen Singh Bedi
138 runs	Mumbai	1981-1982	Sunil Gavaskar

India have now played 15 consecutive Tests without losing a single one!

Its last defeat came against Sri Lanka at Galle in August 2015.

This is India's second longest winning streak ever.

The longest is 17 Tests between 1985 and 1987.

India's longest winning streaks:

Tests	Won	Drawn	Span
17	4	13	1985-1987
15*	10	5	2012-2016
15	4	11	1979-1980
14	9	5	1993-1994
14	8	6	2008-2010
13	2	11	1953-1956