India vs Sri Lanka, 1st Test Day 1 Stats Review: Virat Kohli's 100th Test, Rohit Sharma's unique feat and other records

The ongoing first Test between India and Sri Lanka is attached to two superstars of Indian cricket achieving their important career milestones. Virat Kohli plays his 100th Test and Rohit Sharma made his Test captaincy debut. In a match with such a background, most of the Indian batters played their roles well. Mayank, Rohit, Vihari, Kohli, Pant, Shreyas, and Jadeja – all of them had their piece of cake offered by the flat Mohali pitch.

It all began with India winning the toss and choosing to bat first on Rohit Sharma’s Test captaincy debut. Indian openers Mayank Agarwal and Rohit began to attack straightaway as the pair added a 52 partnership in 59 balls. After both were dismissed at similar scores, the crowd gave a standing applause to Virat Kohli coming to bat in his 100th Test.

He shared a solid 90-run partnership with Hanuma Vihari, who was playing his 100th first-class match. Sri Lanka then bounced back with the wickets of both settled batters Kohli and Vihari. But it was then Rishabh Pant who scored 96 (97) and stole the show, batting in his own style. The support he received from Shreyas Iyer and Ravindra Jadeja at the other end was invaluable. As a result, India finished Day 1 at 357/6.

Let’s have a look at stats from Day 1 of Mohali Test.

12 – Virat Kohli becomes the twelfth Indian to play in 100 Test matches. Among those who made their Test debut in 21st century, Virat Kohli is the third Indian after Virender Sehwag and Ishant Sharma to achieve the milestone.

5 – Rohit Sharma made his Test captaincy debut today. He becomes the fifth Indian to captain the team in Tests, ODIs and T20Is. The other four are  Virender Sehwag, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane.

 5 – Rohit Sharma’s Test, ODI and T20I captaincy debut are all against Sri Lanka. He becomes the fifth player whose captaincy debut in all three formats came against the same team, and the first such Indian.

2 – Rishabh Pant now has both the top two highest scores for India in Test cricket in 2022.

5 – This is the fifth time Rishabh Pant was dismissed in the 90s in a short career of just 28 Tests. Only Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid were out in the nineties more often for India in Tests.

5 – This is only the fifth time all top-7 Indian batters scored 25+ runs. The last such match was against Australia at Adelaide, 2014.

6 – In his 100th Test, Virat Kohli reached another milestone. He becomes the sixth Indian to reach 8000 Test runs. The first five are Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag.

19 – This is the 19th fifty-plus score by Rishabh Pant in international cricket, which is the joint second highest by an Indian wicketkeeper (tied with Farokh Engineer). Only MS Dhoni has a higher number as an Indian wicketkeeper, with 123 fifty-plus scores.

Written By – Kaustubh Gudipati