Agarkar's dubious distinction

By Mohandas Menon

**Ajit Agarkar has recorded his eighth duck of his Test career in 10 matches and 16 innings. Agarkar, who had five ducks in a row within a space of 25 days during December 1999 - January 2000 in Australia, now has three ducks in his last four innings (including the pair against Australia at Mumbai in March this year).

He now has a duck frequency of 50% (i.e. 8 ducks in 16 innings), which equals the all-time worst record held by Australian tail- ender Alan Hurst (10 ducks in 20 innings). Just for the record, the worst duck frequency by an Indian batsman, was held by Dilip Doshi who had 14 ducks in 38 innings (36.84%).

**In the meanwhile, tail-end batsman Ashish Nehra became the first Indian to bag a pair (ducks in each innings) against Zimbabwe. He became the only sixth batsman to do so after - Pakistanis Manzoor Elahi (in 1995) and Mushtaq Ahmed (in 1998), West Indian Adrian Griffith (in 2000) and Bangladeshis Manjrural Islam and Mohammad Sharif (in April this year).

**When he claimed the wicket of Srinath, Heath Streak claimed his 300th first-class wicket of his career in his 98th match since his first-class debut in 1992-93. Among current Zimbabwe players, Streak has the maximum first-class wickets.

**Andy Blignaut who has the distinction of being the first Zimbabwean bowler to take a five-wicket haul (5-73) on Test debut against Bangladesh in April this year (although off-spinner John Traicos too has a five wicket haul on debut for Zimbabwe in 1992, but he had earlier appeared for South Africa in 1970), recorded his second five wicket haul of his Test career in just four matches. His 5-74 in India's second innings was statistically his

second best Test figures.

**Blignaut who has appeared in 20 first-class matches (including four Test) since his debut in 1997-98, has never claimed a five- wicket haul in any of his other 16 first-class matches.

**Blignaut's 5-74 provided the only third occasion when Zimbabwe bowlers have taken a five wicket haul against India. Henry Olonga (5-70 at Harare in October 1998) and John Traicos (5-86 at Harare in October 1992) are the other bowlers to do so.

**Despite a finger injury, Andy Flower in the second innings became the first Zimbabwean keeper to take four catches in an innings against India. By also taking one catch in the first innings he also becomes the first Zimbabwean keeper to claim five in the match against India.

**Stuart Carlisle (62 not out) could not have found a better occasion to record his highest Test score of his career in his 18th Test match. His previous highest score was the 58 he made on two occasions - against New Zealand at Auckland in January 1996 and against India at New Delhi in November 2000. Four of his 50- plus scores out of the five have come against India.

**Although India won the last Test match at Bulawayo to record its first win out of the sub-continent in 15 years, the team now has still not won a Test series out of the sub-continent since 1986 with this loss at Harare. India last beat England 2-0 in 1986. India won the three-match series 1-0 in Sri Lanka in August 1993 and in the one-off Test match in Bangladesh in November 2000 - but both these coming in the sub-continent.

**Zimbabwe has now won its sixth Test match in 52 matches. The team has beaten the three teams from the sub- continent - Pakistan, Bangladesh and India - on two occasions each.

**Zimbabwe has also won three Test matches out of its last four games.

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