Shikhar Dhawan will not forget the third day of the ongoing
Mohali Test for the rest of his life.
Making his Test debut
in place of Virender Sehwag, Dhawan pounced on to the opportunity and rewrote
many records. He raced to his fifty off just 50 balls with 12 fours. It took
him another 35 balls to score his second fifty. In doing so, Dhawan established
a world record. Dhawan’s 85-ball hundred is now the fastest hundred by a
batsman on his Test debut. West Indies’ Dwayne Smith held the previous record
as he took 93 balls for his hundred against South Africa at Cape Town in
2003-04.
Dhawan’s 85-ball
hundred is also the fourth fastest by an Indian in Test cricket. The record is
shared by Kapil Dev and Mohammad Azharuddin with 74-ball hundreds, followed by
a 78-ball hundred by Virender Sehwag.
Between lunch and
tea, Dhawan scored 106 runs. He became only the fourth batsman to score hundred
runs in a session on Test debut after West Indies’ Dwayne Smith, England’s Matt
Prior and Bangladesh’s Abul Hasan. Dhawan is only the seventh Indian player to
score a hundred in a session.
Dhawan also became
13th Indian to score a hundred on Test debut. His innings is easily the highest
by an Indian on Test debut, eclipsing Gundappa Viswanath’s 137 also against
Australia at Kanpur in 1969-70. In all Test cricket, there have been only five
scores higher than Dhawan’s 185* on Test debut. Incidentally Dhawan is the
first Indian opener to score a hundred on Test debut. His innings is now the
second highest by any opener on debut in all Test cricket.
Dhawan was involved in
an unbroken 283-run partnership with Murali Vijay.
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