Stats Analysis

Ballance extends purple patch

Stats highlights from the first day of the third Investec Test at Ageas Bowl

Bishen Jeswant
Bishen Jeswant
27-Jul-2014
Alastair Cook and Sam Robson posted England's first fifty-run stand for the first wicket this year  •  PA Photos

Alastair Cook and Sam Robson posted England's first fifty-run stand for the first wicket this year  •  PA Photos

1 Number of times that Alastair Cook has played 200-plus balls in his last 35 Test innings. His 231-ball effort on Sunday was also the first time that he had played 100 balls in 13 innings.
2 Number of times that England have lost a Test series when their No.3 batsman has scored two hundreds in that series - once to India and the other to Australia. When Gary Ballance reached his hundred, it was the 28th instance of an English No.3 batsman scoring two hundreds in a series. The last England No.3 batsman to score at least two centuries in a series was Ian Bell, during India's disastrous tour in 2011.
3 Number of times in the last 65 Test innings that opposition teams have posted 100-plus runs for the second wicket against India. England have been the opposition on all three occasions.
4 Number of players before the start of the day's play who were above Cook on the all-time list of Test runs scored by an English batsman. During his 95, Cook leapfrogged Kevin Pietersen as well as David Gower to go third on that list, and is now only behind Graham Gooch and Alec Stewart.
6 Number of times that Cook has been dismissed in the 90s during his Test career. All six dismissals have been between the scores of 94 and 96 - once on 96, twice on 95 and thrice on 94. His dismissal for 95 on Sunday, though, was his first in the 90s as England captain.
7 England's run-rate against full bowling during the day. England scored 43 runs off 35 balls against full bowling (7.37) and 65 runs off 45 balls against short bowling (8.66). When the bowling was at a length, or short of good length, England scored only 134 runs off 456 balls, at a run-rate of 1.76.
9 Number of Test innings between England's opening partnership of 55 in this innings, and the last instance of an English opening pair posting 50-plus runs. England's average score for the opening wicket in 2014 is 25.90. They only average lesser for their fourth and ninth wickets this year.
67.25 Ballance's batting average, which is the joint highest for an England batsman at the age of 24 (minimum five Tests). The other English player to have an identical average at that age was Len Hutton. Ballance also became the second-highest run-scorer in this series and is only five runs short of Murali Vijay who has made 317 runs.
300 Number of first-class wickets taken by Pankaj Singh prior to making his Test debut. With a little bit of support from the fielders or the umpire, he could have added to that tally today.

Bishen Jeswant is a stats sub editor at ESPNcricinfo.