Stats: Parthiv Patel's long awaited comeback in numbers

A day after India announced their squad for the last three matches of the Test series against England, Parthiv Patel was called in to replace their wicket-keeper Wriddhiman Saha for the 3rd Test match at Mohali.

Parthiv Patel will now play his first International match for India in 4 years. He was called up as cover for MS Dhoni during the Asia Cup T20 earlier this year but was permitted to the bench only. Parthiv’s last Test match was 8 years ago when Anil Kumble was leading the side, who is now the Indian team’s head coach. Here we look at some interesting numbers over Parthiv Patel’s long awaited comeback.

0 – Number of players in the squads of either sides made their debut before Parthiv Patel (On 18th August, 2002 at Nottingham). James Anderson is the nearest among the all. He made his debut in March, 2003.

3 – Number of wicket-keepers played under Virat Kohli in Test cricket so far. Previous 3 out of 4 Indian captains had three different keepers playing under them. MS Dhoni however, was the only keeper to feature in Tests for India in his captaincy.

8 years 106 days – Time interval between Parthiv Patel’s two Test matches, the longest for any Indian between two games in this format post World War 2.

14 – Since Parthiv Patel’s last Test in August 2008, 14 out of the remaining 15 Indians in the squad have either made their Test debut or yet to make. Only Ishant Sharma made his debut my then.

16 – Number of centuries Parthiv Patel has scored in first-class cricket since he was dropped from Test side in 2008, twice to the number of tons he had scored before he got dropped.

His record in first-class cricket before and after getting dropped from the Test side:

51.31 – Parthiv Patel’s batting average in first-class matches in India since 2008/09 season, the 2nd best among wicket-keepers. Only Dinesh Karthik (51.49) has a better average than Parthiv in this period among keepers. (Min: 3000 runs)

83 – Number of Tests of India Parthiv Patel has missed between his two appearances, the most by any Indian. Piyush Chawla missed 49 Tests.

139* – Parthiv Patel’s highest score in this season. He scored an unbeaten 139 off just 170 balls in the previous round game against Madhya Pradesh. Out of the 8 innings in Ranji Trophy in this season, Parthiv has 4 fifty plus scores including a best of 139*. His scores in the India’s premier FC tournament read: 12, 139*, 49, 21, 60, 53, 61 and 20 (Most recent first).

192 – Number of International matches Parthiv Patel missed since his last game in 2012, the joint 4th most matches missed by any Indian. 3 Indians missed more than 200 matches between their two appearances in International cricket.

244 – Parthiv Patel was India’s 244th player to represent in Test cricket for India. Since 2015, Parthiv is only the 3rd player to feature in a Test among India’s first 250 Test players. Harbhajan Singh (215th) and Gautam Gambhir (249th) are the other two.

2008 – Last time Parthiv Patel featured in a Test match was in August, 2008 vs Sri Lanka at Colombo (PSS). He scored 13 and 1 in the game and made 3 dismissals behind wickets. It was also the first time when India played a bilateral series which included DRS. Interestingly, the ongoing India-England series is the first bilateral series in India to include DRS.

2012 – Last time Parthiv Patel featured in an International game for India was in 2012 vs Sri Lanka at Brisbane in the ODI Tri-series featuring Australia. He played the game after MS Dhoni, the Indian captain was banned from playing the game due to slow over rate. Parthiv scored 4 runs and made a dismissal behind wickets.

5234 – Runs scored by Parthiv Patel in first-class matches in India since 2008/09 season, the 8th most by any player. Among wicket-keepers, only Robin Uthappa (6125), Dinesh Karthik (5921) and Naman Ojha (5339) have more runs than Parthiv.

(Stats updated till 23rd November, 2016)

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