India v Sri Lanka, 2017: 2nd Test – Statistical Preview

Sri Lanka threatened India in the first Test match after taking a big lead but the No.1 Test side made a strong comeback to put the Lankans on the edge. A pace-friendly surface gave the visiting team the edge in the first Test of the series, which was expected to be a one-sided affair. However, with India opting for similar surfaces ahead of the South Africa series, the remaining Test matches will also sport similar wickets.

Here are the key stats and numbers to keep an eye on ahead of the 2nd Test match:

2 – Number of International matches Sri Lanka has played at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur. They played an ODI and T20I against India in December 2009 and won both. The Indian team has played five Test matches at this venue so far and won three of them and lost one.

7 – Number of instances including the first Test where the visiting teams invited India to bat first after winning the toss. No team ended up on losing side whereas only Australia managed to win the game on two occasions. They defeated India by a 10-wicket margin in 1969 and 2001 both at Kolkata and Mumbai respectively after electing to bowl first.

11 – Virat Kohli’s century in the previous Test was his 11th as Indian captain in this format. He equalled Sunil Gavaskar’s tally of 11 Test hundreds as Indian skipper. With the unbeaten 104 in the 2nd innings, Kohli (2664) went past Sourav Ganguly’s tally of 2561 runs as captain and is now only behind three other Indian skippers.

96 – Number of wickets in Test cricket for Dilruwan Perera. He needs another four wickets to become the 6th Sri Lankan to pick 100 Test wickets.

97 – Umesh Yadav has picked 97 wickets in Test cricket so far. He needs another three wickets to become the 21st Indian to pick 100 Test wickets.

292 – Number of wickets Ravichandran Ashwin has in Test cricket. He needs another eight wickets to become the 5th Indian to attain 300 Test wickets. If Ashwin completes the milestone in his next two Tests, he will become the quickest to reach 300 wickets in this format.

566/8 – India’s total of 566/8 dec against New Zealand in 2010 is the highest team total in Test cricket at VCA Stadium in Nagpur. Among the 12 Indian venues that hosted five and more Tests, Nagpur is one of the two which hasn’t witnessed a 600+ total. The Nehru Stadium in Madras which hosted nine Tests between 1953 and 1966 had the highest total of 539/9.

925 – Cheteshwar Pujara has scored 925 runs in the nine Test matches he played in 2017. In the previous five calendar years, Virat Kohli (1215 in 2016) is the only Indian player to score 1000 Test runs in a calendar year.

2978 – Runs Dinesh Chandimal has scored in Test cricket. He needs 22 more runs to become the 13th Sri Lankan with 3000 runs in this format.