Sky Cricket number cruncher Benedict Bermange looks at the top stats from the opening day of the 2021/22 Ashes series, as Rory Burns is cleaned up first ball in Brisbane en route to another score of nought and Pat Cummins enjoys a dream start to his tenure as Australia Test captain
Thursday 9 December 2021 09:45, UK
Rory Burns has etched himself into Brisbane Ashes folklore.
Following Michael Slater carving Phil DeFreitas for four in 1994, Nasser Hussain's bowl-first decision in 2002 and Steve Harmison's wide to Andrew Flintoff at second slip in 2006, we can now add Burns dismissed to the first delivery at The Gabba.
The opener is not the first batter to suffer that fate in Ashes series. The other was England's Stan Worthington, who was caught behind by Bert Oldfield off the bowling of Ernie McCormick in 1936.
The last England batsman to be dismissed first ball of any Test was Sir Andrew Strauss by Dale Steyn at Johannesburg in 2010.
Burns made his sixth duck in Test cricket this year, equalling the England record set by James Anderson in 2013 and by Stuart Broad in 2018. West Indies' Mervyn Dillon holds the overall record, with 10 ducks in 2002.
However, Burns' six ducks are the most by anyone batting in positions 1-7 in Test cricket in a single year.
Mitchell Starc is the sixth bowler to take a wicket with the first ball of a Test on more than one occasion, having also performed the feat at Galle in 2016 when he removed Dimuth Karunaratne.
West Indies' Pedro Collins did it three times, with Starc, Suranga Lakmal (Sri Lanka), Kapil Dev (India), Sir Richard Hadlee (New Zealand) and Geoff Arnold (England) having achieved the feat twice.
This is Pat Cummins' first experience of captaining in first-class cricket, and it happens to be a Test match. He is the fourth Australian to captain a Test side before any other first-class sides, after Dave Gregory in 1877, Kim Hughes in 1979 and Michael Clarke in 2011.
Cummins became just the fourth bowler to take at least five wickets on his first day as Test captain, following in the footsteps of…
The only other Australian to take at least five wickets in an innings in his first Test captaining the side was George Giffen, who took 6-155 in England's second innings at Melbourne in the 1894/95 Test.
The opposing captains in this Test are the current top-ranked batter and bowler in the ICC Test rankings - Joe Root and Cummins.
The only other occasion on which the number-one batter and bowler went out to toss in a Test was at Leeds in 1980, when Sir Ian Botham tossed up with Sir Viv Richards.
