A closer look at the records set and broken in the Border-Gavaskar series, with Smith, Lyon and Kohli featuring
Australia's spin high, Kohli's all-time low
499 – The number of runs Steve Smith scored in the series, the second-highest tally by any Australia batsman on Indian soil in a series of four Tests or less. He is behind only Matthew Hayden, the former opening batsman who piled on 549 runs at 109.80 in three Tests in 2001.
3 – The number of hundreds scored by Smith in the series, the most by an Australian in a series in India. Just five other visiting batsmen have scored three hundreds in a series in India – Sir Everton Weekes (4), Sir Garry Sobers, Ken Barrington, Hashim Amla and Alastair Cook (3). Weekes, Sobers and Barrington all did it in a five-Test series, while Amla needed just two Tests to score three tons.
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20 – The number of centuries Smith has scored in his Test career, reaching the milestone at the age of 27 years and 296 days and in just 99 innings. He's the third youngest player after Cook (27y and 207d) and Sachin Tendulkar (26y and 172d) and the fourth-quickest behind Hayden (95 innings), Sunil Gavaskar (93) and Don Bradman (55) to score 20 Test tons. All 20 of Smith's hundreds have come since start of the fifth Ashes Test in 2013, a period of just three years and seven months.
Image Id: A96F518D1E2E42EABEB1B4A32BA6EF8B7 - The number of centuries Smith has scored in 20 Test innings against India. Ricky Ponting (eight centuries in 51 innings) is the only Australian with more Test tons against India.
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25.26 – Nathan Lyon’s bowling average for the series in which he took 19 wickets, his best average in a series of at least three Tests. The home series against West Indies in 2015-16, when he took 13 wickets at 25.46, was his previous best.
24.73 – The combined average of Australia’s spinners in the series. The campaign will always be fondly remembered by Australians for Steve O’Keefe’s 12 wickets in the opening Test in Pune and Nathan Lyon’s 8-50 in the second Test in Bengaluru, the latter achievement the best bowling figures by an Australian slow bowler in 96 years. In terms of wickets taken, it's best series performance by Australia’s spinners since Shane Warne’s retirement and the second-best in that time in terms of averages. Only in one series, against Pakistan in 2009-10, have Australia’s tweakers averaged better (22.47). But they bowled just 137.4 overs in that series compared to 351.3 against India.
Image Id: 82BA827A7EEF4116AD4501E06B5413FC24.12 – Warner’s batting average in the series, his second-lowest in a series in which he played at least three Tests. The opener scored 193 runs across eight innings at 24.12, his lowest return since the 2013 Ashes when he scored 138 runs in six innings at 23.
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9.20 – Virat Kohli’s batting average in the series, the lowest of his 54-Test career. His return of 46 runs in three Tests was even lower than his 2014 tour of England, when he scored 134 runs at 13.40. It is also the lowest average by any Indian captain in a home series of least three Tests, surpassing the previous record of Sourav Ganguly, who scored 48 runs at 9.60 against Pakistan in 2005.
3 – The number of teams to hold a series win against all nine Test opponents at the same time. India have won their most recent series against every other Test nation, joining Australia (in 2005 and 2007) and South Africa (2012) as the other two teams to have achieved a full set of Test series wins.
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5 - The number of man-of-the-match awards for Ravindra Jadeja in his 30-Test career, an average of one every six Tests. His ratio is the highest of any player to have featured in at least 20 Tests since 2010.
Image Id: 643B0DE460164FF283D433738DEE9D3A17 – The number of wickets taken by Umesh Yadav in the series, the most by an Indian pacer in a series of four or less Tests against Australia. Yadav took 17 wickets at 23.41 including three scalps on the penultimate day when he dismissed Australian openers David Warner and Matt Renshaw cheaply at a crucial juncture of the series. The previous record belonged to Ajit Agarkar, who took 16 wickets in four Tests in the 2003-04 series.
4 – The number of consecutive Test series defeats for Australia in India. The Aussies have not won a series in India since their 2-1 victory in the Border-Gavaskar series of 2004, after which they were defeated 2-0 on their 2008 and 2010 tours and 4-0 in 2013. But their victory in Pune at least put an end to their run of eight consecutive Test defeats in India.
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9.09 – Australia's winning percentage in Tests in Asia since the 2006-07 Ashes when Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath Justin Langer and Damien Martyn said farewell to Test cricket. A percentage of 9.09 is 50.69 per cent lower than their win percentage outside Asia during this period. While Australia lost the series in India 2-1, they can draw comfort from the fact their streak of nine consecutive defeats in Asia came to an end with a thumping 333-run win in the first Test in Pune. They also managed to avoid defeat in Ranchi where they batted 92.4 overs on the fifth day.
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