Port of Spain's penchant for records
Staff Reporter - 25 April 2002
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India have a habit, for some reason, of choosing Port of Spain as the
ground to set many of their records, and Sourav Ganguly's team
continued that tradition this time around. The Queen's Park Oval saw
two individuals garner two important records, making for an unusually
statistics-heavy Test.
Ganguly himself was one of those individuals, notching up his fourth
Test win overseas to pass MAK Pataudi and Bishan Singh Bedi for most
victories abroad. Bedi and Ganguly have comparable records; they
registered their away wins in 22 and 20 Tests respectively. Pataudi,
however, posted his wins even though he was skipper for a whopping 40
Tests.
Interestingly enough, Ganguly and Bedi are two of the three Indian captains to win a Test in the Caribbean, with Ajit Wadekar being the third. All of India's three wins in the West Indies, moreover, have come at Port of Spain.
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In passing, the comparison of each captain's performance in his away
wins proves extremely flattering to Ganguly. The current Indian
skipper averages 76.25 in those four Tests; Pataudi, in contrast,
averages a measly 24.40, while Bedi took 16 wickets in the three
Tests.
The other notable statistic from Port of Spain, of course, was Sachin
Tendulkar drawing level with Don Bradman. While 29 centuries is still
an achievement, and nothing should detract from Tendulkar's
performances thus far, the difference in speed is staggering enough to
further burnish the glow on the Don's halo.
Tendulkar took 93 matches and 148 innings for his centuries - a
hundred every 5.1 innings. Tendulkar's Mumbai predecessor, Sunil
Gavaskar, played 95 matches and 166 innings - a hundred every 5.72
innings. Bradman played 52 Tests and 80 innings - a hundred every
2.76 innings, or almost twice as often as Tendulkar. So if one thinks
Tendulkar prolific, the imagination boggles further at Bradman.
One reason for Bradman's superior record could have been his rate of
conversion. He finished his career with 29 hundreds but only 13
fifties. Tendulkar has 31 fifties to his 29 centuries. Gavaskar
had made 35 fifties when he made his 29th century.
Statistics from Rajneesh Gupta
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