Records Broken in test cricket
It was a day of records in both AUS Vs WI and ENG Vs PAK test games as Australian batters Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne smashed double centuries on the second day of the first test against West Indies. While England stunned the world after posting 506 runs in just 75 on the first day of the first test against Pakistan in Rawalpindi. Let us look at the Records Broken in test cricket.
Let’s quickly take a look at few of the Records Broken in test matches, that were broken during the tests between Australia and Pakistan and England and the United States on that historic day.
AUS Vs WI: Smith and Labuschagne’s class batting
First we will start with the AUS vs WI game, Australia clearly dominated the second successive day of the first test, with star batters Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne each scoring a double-century on day two of the first test between Australia and West Indies at the Perth Stadium,
After playing nearly 38 overs together on day one, Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne came out fresh the next morning and were not in the mood to give the visitors any chances.
They continued to annoy the West Indies team with their faultless batting while also scoring runs on loose balls.
Right before lunch, the 28-year-old Labuschagne hit his second double-hundred. However, he missed the opportunity to surpass his own record-high score of 215.
Record-breaking Smith
Then, just before lunch, Steve Smith had to reach 100. With his century, he tied Sir Don Bradman’s record of 29 test cricket hundreds. He accomplished this feat in his 88th game, whereas Sir Don Bradman did so in his first 51 games.
Smith also became the third fastest in terms of most hundreds scored in innings, with only India legend Sachin Tendulkar and Sir Bradman were ahead of him.
He claimed this milestone on his 155th innings, Tendulkar completed in 148th, while Bradman recorded it in just 79 innings.
The former skipper of Australia, not just stopped there, as he claimed another record of scoring 4000 runs in test cricket, with only Sir Bradman (98.22) and Sir Garfield Sobers with an average of 66.8 ahead of Smith (64.53).
Smith’s dominance against West Indies
It was his third century against West Indies, while he scored 697 in 6 test at a mind-boggling average of 232.33 against the West Indies.
Smith scored his fifth double hundred in the process, making him the fifth Australian to score four double centuries.
Ricky Ponting had scored 6 double hundred, while Sir Bradman again topping the chart with 12 double tons.
This is the fifth time in the history of Australian cricket that two batters scoring double centuries for them in the same innings.
Australia declared their first innings at 598, which was there second best against West Indies, with only 619 was their top score recorded against West Indies way back in 1969.
Now let’s look at what England did on the first day of the Rawalpindi test
The visitors crushed the Pakistani bowlers with their T-20 style batting on the first day of the opening test match between England and Pakistan in Rawalpindi.
The English team recorded the highest runs on day 1 in test. They scored 506 on day 1, while the previous best 494 recorded 112 years back in an Australia Vs South Africa match.
The opening day of the first test between Pakistan and England has witnessed a Virender Sehwag style batting by 4 English batters, as they smashed runs with 100-plus strike rate.
Interestingly 3 of them recorded centuries.
This is not the first time that England have recorded 500 runs in a test day, as they achieved it 3 time before too but not on the opening day, while one time Sri Lanka too did collected 500-plus in a single day, but again not on the opening day.
If we talk about the overall numbers, then 588 is the highest runs recorded in the single day of a test match in a game between India and England in 1936.
