Swann on song

Benedict Bermange picks out the statistical highs and lows from England's Test series defeat to India.

Benedict's back with more stats and facts

Sky Sports' cricket stats man Benedict Bermange has teamed up with skysports.com to bring you all the statistical highlights from our past week of cricket coverage. The glorious game will be brought to you in numbers as Benedict unearths relevant historical facts that have arisen from the past seven days in the world of cricket. He will also be on hand to answer your statistical cricketing questions, be it about an existing record, player, team, ground, umpire or the laws of the game. If you've been stumped by a quiz question down the local or you have come across a fact or stat during Sky Sports' cricket coverage that you must have verified to cure your insanity, then Benedict's your man. Whatever has been puzzling you, just email Benedict here or fill out the comment form at the bottom of the page and he'll answer your questions.

Ducking the issue

The Chennai Test between India and England was just the seventh decided Test in history where no batsman failed to score. The other Tests were:

Home	Away	Venue	Season
Australia	England	Sydney	1907/08
West Indies	Australia	Georgetown	1972/73
Australia	England	Sydney	1974/75
Australia	Pakistan	Sydney	1983/84
Australia	South Africa	Sydney	2001/02
Sri Lanka	Bangladesh	Colombo	2005/06

The game also saw Andrew Strauss become the 100th batsman in Test cricket history to aggregate 4,000 runs in a Test career. Strauss became the tenth England player to score a century in each innings of a Test, and the first in the subcontinent. He is now the second batsman to make a hundred in each innings of a Test match for England against India. Graham Gooch (333 & 123) had made a triple century and a century at Lord's in 1990. Graeme Swann, by dismissing Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid with his third and sixth balls respectively, became the second bowler after Richard Johnson (England) to capture two wickets in his first over in Test cricket. Johnson achieved the feat, against Zimbabwe in the 2003 Chester-le-Street Test. With his 32-ball fifty, Virender Sehwag set a record for the fastest Test half-century by an Indian batsman against England. Sehwag's 32-ball half-century is now the second fastest by an Indian batsman in Test cricket, next only to Kapil Dev's 30-ball fifty against Pakistan in the 1982-83 Karachi Test. Sehwag now has 65 sixes in Test cricket - a new Indian record for most career sixes, bettering Kapil Dev's tally of 61 MS Dhoni became the first Indian captain to win his first four Tests in charge. However, the draw at Mohali meant that he fell short of Percy Chapman's record of winning his first nine Tests in charge - set from 1926 to 1930. Australian Warwick Armstrong won his first eight - from 1920 to 1921. Sachin Tendulkar's 41st Test century is his seventh against England but is only his third in the fourth innings of a Test, and the first among them to feature in an Indian win. Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid put on 314 for the second wicket at Mohali, India's second-best partnership stand against England for any wicket in Tests, next only to the 316 between Yashpal Sharma and Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma for the third wicket in the 1981-82 Chennai Test.

Captain fantastic

Kevin Pietersen's innings of 144 is the highest by an England captain in India. It is the fourth century by an England captain on tour there:

Score	Name	Venue	Season
144	KP Pietersen	Mohali	2008/09
126*	ER Dexter	Kanpur	1961/62
125	AR Lewis	Kanpur	1972/73
103	AW Greig	Calcutta	1976/77

During the course of his innings, Pietersen passed 1,000 Test runs for the third consecutive year, joining Matthew Hayden (who achieved it in five consecutive years), Brian Lara and Marcus Trescothick who have also reached that landmark three years running. Despite failing at Mohali, Virender Sehwag ended the year with 1462 Test runs, a new Indian record for a calendar year, surpassing Sunil Gavaskar's 1407 scored in 1979. England's last six wickets fell for just 22 runs - a pretty bad collapse, but not their worst ever. Back in February 1908 at Melbourne, they lost their last six wickets for just 15 runs, collapsing from 90-4 to 105 all out. Gambhir's total of 276 runs in the match is a new record for India against India, surpassing Vinoo Mankad's 256 (72 & 184) at Lord's in 1952. Jerome Taylor's extraordinary maiden Test century for West Indies against New Zealand at Dunedin was his first score of over fifty in all first-class cricket. His Test average of 16.66 makes him among the 'worst' Test batsmen to score a century. The honour of the lowest average by anyone scoring a Test century belongs to Saqlain Mushtaq who averaged 14.48 despite reaching three figures against Zimbabwe. Despite falling for a "cricket is a funny game" golden duck in his second innings at Napier, Shiv Chanderpaul still ended his second consecutive year with a batting average of more than one hundred. Chris Gayle's innings of 197 included seven sixes, which equalled the West Indian Test record. The other innings featuring seven maximums are:

Name	Against	Venue	Season	Runs	Balls
IVA Richards	England	St John's	1985/86	110*	58
CG Greenidge	New Zealand	Auckland	1986/87	213	384
BC Lara	Pakistan	Multan	2006/07	216	262

Prolific Proteas

South Africa's successful fourth-innings chase of 414 against Australia at Perth is the second-highest in Test history and the highest-ever by a visiting team. Two of the highest five chases have been achieved in the past couple of weeks:

Score	Overs	Team	Against	Venue	Season
418-7	128.5	West Indies	Australia	St John's	2002/03
414-4	119.2	South Africa	Australia	Perth	2008/09
406-4	147	India	West Indies	Port-of-Spain	1975/76
404-3	114.1	Australia	England	Leeds	1948
387-4	98.3	India	England	Chennai	2008/09

Mitchell Johnson's bowling figures of 8-61 in South Africa's first innings are the best in Test history by a left-arm fast bowler, surpassing Mike Whitney's 7-27 for Australia against India also at Perth in 1992. Jason Krejza is the only bowler to start his Test career by conceding at least 100 runs in the first four innings in which he has bowled. However, six bowlers have conceded three figures in five consecutive innings.