The win also made Mahendra Singh Dhoni India’s most successful Test captain. It was his 22nd win, taking him past Sourav Ganguly’s tally of 21 wins. And Dhoni needed four fewer Tests to surpass Ganguly’s tally.

Dhoni’s record in home Tests is just remarkable. Out of a total of 26 Tests at home, Dhoni has lost only three (two of those defeats came in the last series against England, while the only other came against South Africa in 2010). Dhoni’s 17 wins at home are easily the most by any Indian captain, with Mohammad Azharuddin the distant second with 13 wins.

Ashwin in action against the Aussies at Hyderabad. PTI

Dhoni has captained against Australia in six Tests at home and has won all six! His win-tally against Australia is the highest for an Indian captain, well ahead of Sunil Gavaskar and Sourav Ganguly, who both won three Tests each.

It was the seventh time that India won a Test by innings margin under Dhoni’s leadership. Mohammad Azharuddin holds the Indian record with eight such wins.

 

On the first day of the Test Michael Clarke made an unexpected declaration with team score at 237 for nine. This provided only the third instance in Test history of a side declaring its innings on the very first day of a Test. The other two had come at Lord’s.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar had gone wicketless in Chennai Test, but it was he who started Australia’s collapse at Hyderabad by taking first three wickets of Australian innings. David Warner’s wicket was his first in Test cricket and with this, he got a unique record to his name.

Kumar’s first wickets in all three formats of international cricket were all bowled (he had dismissed Nasir Jamshed and Mohammad Hafeez as his first wickets in Twenty20 internationals and One-day Internationals respectively). There have been a few players who have taken first wicket as bowled in two formats, but none had done this in all three before Kumar.

Incidentally there are seven other players who have taken their first wicket in each of the three formats without any assistance from a teammate. The complete list:

The second day of Hyderabad Test will go down as one of India’s most dominating days against Australia (in terms of batting) as Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara went on scoring spree.

306 runs were added to India’s total with the loss of only one wicket (Sehwag). There have been only two occasions when India scored more runs against Australia in a day losing fewer or same number of wickets.

Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara put on 370 runs, which is India’s best partnership for the second wicket in Test cricket. The pair obliterated the previous record stand of 344 (unbroken) between Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar against West Indies at Kolkata in 1978-79. These two just failed to beat India’s highest ever partnership for any wicket against Australia.

VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid had added 376 runs for the fifth wicket at Kolkata in 2000-01. The Vijay- Pujara partnership is now India’s fourth highest partnership for any wicket in Test cricket. It is also the third highest partnership for any wicket by any side against Australia.

After the 370-run partnership for the second wicket between Vijay and Pujara, Indian innings lost its way somewhat and folded for 503. India’s total is in fact the second lowest all-out total in Test cricket to include a partnership of 350 or more. Graham Gooch and David Gower had added 351 runs for the second wicket for England against Australia at The Oval in 1985, but the team got dismissed for 464.

Cheteshwar Pujara (204) scored his second double hundred in Test cricket, after his unbeaten 206 against England at Ahmedabad in November 2012. During his innings, Pujara completed his 1000 runs in Test cricket. He equalled Sunil Gavaskar’s Indian record of doing so in least number of Tests (11).

In terms of innings Pujara is the second quickest with 18 innings after Vinod Kambli , who reached the mark in just 14 innings. In Test cricket Don Bradman is the quickest to accomplish this feat, taking only 7 Tests. In terms of innings England’s Herbert Sutcliffe and West Indies’ Everton Weekes share the record with 12 innings to do so.

Murali Vijay (167) scored his highest score in Test cricket, beating his 139 also against Australia at Bangalore in 2010-11. Interestingly Vijay’s both Test hundreds have come against Australia and on both the occasions he was involved in a 300-run partnership! At Bangalore in 2010-11 he had added 308 runs for the third wicket with Sachin Tendulkar.

India crossed 500 for the second time in two consecutive Tests (they had made 572 in the first Test at Chennai). This provided only the second such instance for India against Australia. In 2000-01 series India had made 657 for 7 declared at Kolkata and followed it up with 501 at Chennai.

In their second innings, Australia crumbled from 108 for three to be all out for 131 – losing last seven wickets for 23 runs – their worst collapse against India. At Wankhede in 1979-80 Australia had lost their last seven wickets for 42 runs.

Australia’s defeat provided the 11th instance of a team losing after declaring the first innings of a match. It was, however, the first time ever that a team lost by innings margin after declaring the first innings of a match.

# After second, third and fourth day’s play was completely washed off, South Africa declared first innings. England declared their first innings. South Africa then forfeited their second innings, setting England a target of 249, which they achieved with 2 wickets and five balls to spare.

India won the Test without taking all 20 opposition wickets (Michael Clarke had declared Australia’s first innings with nine wickets down). This was the eighth such instance for India. Interestingly four of them have come against Australia! The fewest wickets taken by India to win a Test are 16 against West Indies at Port-of-Spain in 1975-76.

Note: Had India won the Chennai Test vs Australia in 1986-87 (that eventually ended in a thrilling tie), they would have done so by taking only 12 opposition wickets!

Australia could aggregate only 368 runs in the match (237 in the first and 131 in the second). This is one of their worst batting performances in a Test against India.

Interestingly Australia’s match aggregate of 368 was still two runs less than Vijay –Pujara partnership! It was the 14th instance in Test annals when an entire team was outscored by a single partnership.

The win is India’s fifth in consecutive Tests at home against Australia. In fact India have not lost to Australia in last 9 home Tests.

source:http://www.firstpost.com / Home> FirstPost.Sports> Sports / by Rajneesh Gupta / March 07th, 2013