Runs, records flow on Australia's day

In sprinting, there are records that are set but carry an asterisk that denote the runner was pushed unfairly by a substantial tail wind.

There are others, including one pertaining to a well-known Australian football club, which carry the caveat that performances might have benefited from a boost more pharmacological than meteorological.

But even though cricket keeps records more voluminous and trivial than most rival sports be they team and individual, the record that Adam Voges set today – as scorer of the highest number of Test runs between dismissals – won’t include the footnote that, in reality, he was.

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Dismissed, that is.

The erroneous call of ‘no-ball’ that umpire Richard Illingworth produced at the end of a long first day allowed Voges to progress his score from seven (his total when he was clean bowled without playing a stroke) to 176, still unbeaten.

In doing so, he not only (minus the asterisk) surpassed the achievement of India’s batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar for the piling on the most Test runs between recorded dismissals which previously stood at 497 but has now blown out beyond 550.

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The reprieve that came when Illingworth mistook a legitimate delivery for a no-ball and a moment of celebration turned into an entire day of despair for New Zealand also allowed Voges to lift Australia from a parlous 3-147 (that should have been 4-147) to a commanding 6-463 just 24 hours later.

A lead of 280 with four first-innings wickets intact and three days of play remaining.

The Black Caps scarcely needed an errant umpire’s call to alert them to how difficult Voges, forced to wait until age 35 before granted an opportunity to play Test cricket, is to remove once he settles in at the crease.

After all, they were the last Test attack to claim his wicket (in the scorebook) before the newly appointed Middlesex captain went through en entire series against the West Indies in Australia without surrendering his wicket.

In that time, courtesy of successive innings that have yielded 269no (in Hobart), 106no (at the MCG) and today’s 176no, Voges' Test average has swollen to 100.33 which, in his 14th Test match, is even better than fellow Western Australian late bloomer Mike Hussey’s at the same juncture.

Even better than a certain Don Bradman, who after 14 Tests averaged a mere 94.45.

And Voges might even have the chance to bat again before this Test is done.

Such has been Voges dominance across the second half of the Australian summer that at times he has threatened to overshadow teammate Usman Khawaja with whom he shared a partnership of 168 for the fourth wicket today.

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Their union not only pushed the first Test of the two-match series ever further from the Black Caps’ grip.

It surely strained the home team’s well documented ‘nice guy’ pesona with each boundary the Australians scored, every over they negotiated and because of the ball-by-ball reminder Voges’ unflinching presence provided of that moment last night when they were robbed.

It’s a measure of their magnanimity that most of their XI approached Voges and offered their personal congratulations on his feat at day’s end, a gesture that few other teams might contemplated in such an unfair scenario.

Not that their frustration can be directed at the Australian, who had no role – directly or otherwise – in the circumstances that led to his reprieve.

It also meant that his innings, which was a study in concentration and disciplined stroke play and precisely the kind of batting the Australians had identified as optimal in the wake of their Ashes failure, could be characterised as free of a false stroke.

Given he did not attempt one against the ball that should have seen him depart on Friday evening, when he learned much from his lapse of judgement and gained even more from Illingworth’s error in law.

Save for a fleeting moment with the second new ball – when Trent Boult suddenly channelled Trent Bridge to claim Khawaja and Mitchell Marsh in the space of three deliveries – the NZ bowlers rarely threatened.

Voges and Khawaja were circumspect against the balls that landed in threatening areas, and respectfully harsh on those that were there to be punished.

Many of those served up by off-spinner Mark Craig who gained little from the pitch that kept batsmen watchful but scarcely on their toes.

The slog that was required to prise out batsmen throughout the day could only have enhanced the bitter tang that lingered in the wake of Friday’s blunder.

But after two days of the Test, notwithstanding the talking point that has straddled both, the Australians have outpointed their hosts with ball and then with bat as befitting the number one Test ranking that a series win would grant them.

A disparity of 300 or possibly more on first innings suggests a sizeable gap between the efforts of competing teams across the first phase of a Test match.

And that is what, without the addition of starred items or explanatory notes, the scorecard of this match will show throughout perpetuity.