England v South Africa 2017: 3rd Test, Day 2 – Statistical Highlights

England bounced back strong in the 3rd Test as they reduced South Africa to just 126/8 before the close of the 2nd day’s play with the visitors still needing 28 runs to avoid the follow-on. A gritty 88 from Alastair Cook and a brilliant 112-run knock from Ben Stokes helped England post 353 in their first innings in conditions that helped the pacers on either side.

Here we look at all the stats and records created during the first two days’ play.

0.67 – Keaton Jennings’ batting average against Vernon Philander in Tests; he got out to the South African pacer trice in 23 balls scoring just 2 runs.

3 – Number of debutants for England in this game; Tom Westley, Dawid Malan and Toby Roland-James made their Test debuts. This is only the 4th instance for the side since 2000 where they fielded 3 Test debutants. They played against India in 2006 at Nagpur, against Australia and Sri Lanka at Sydney and Lord’s respectively in 2014 with 3 players making their debut in the XI.

10 – Number of times Alastair Cook has been dismissed by Morne Morkel in Test cricket; the most times he got out to any player in this format. Mitchell Johnson got Cook on 9 occasions in Tests.

12 – Ben Stokes became the 12th player and the 2nd England player after Wally Hammond to hit 3 or more sixes in consecutive balls in Test cricket. The last player to do the feat was Tim Southee in 2014 against Pakistan.

100 – This is the 100th Test match at The Oval; it is the 4th venue in the history to host 100 Test matches. Lord’s hosted 134 Tests while Melbourne and Sydney have hosted 109 and 105 Tests respectively.

2009 – Last English pacer before Toby Roland-Jones to take a 4-wicket haul on Test debut was Graham Onions vs England in 2009. After him, two spinners: James Tredwell and Adil Rashid picked up 4-fers on debut.

2016 – Last time Alastair Cook scored a first-innings fifty was in July 2016 against Pakistan. He scored 7 fifties after that in Tests but all in the 2nd innings.

2089 – Runs Ben Stokes has scored in his Test career so far; he is the 57th player to score 2000 Test runs for England and the 299th player overall to aggregate 2000 runs in Tests.