Stats highlights from day three of the first Test between Sri Lanka and New Zealand in Galle
Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan19-Nov-2012 Sri Lanka’s win is their sixth in 17 home Tests against New Zealand. Five of their wins, however, have come in the last seven Tests. New Zealand’s last win in Sri Lanka came at the R Premadasa Stadium in 1998. Sri Lanka’s win is their sixth in the last eight Tests in Galle. Their only loss in the last eight Tests came against Australia in 2011. Rangana Herath’s 11 for 108 is his second ten-wicket match haul in Galle Tests after the 12 for 171 against England earlier this year. Only Muttiah Muralitharan has more ten-wicket match hauls (four) than Herath in Galle. In eight Tests in Galle, Herath has picked up 46 wickets at an average of 20.30 with five five-wicket hauls. Herath’s 11 for 108 is the best match-bowling performance by a Sri Lanka bowler in Tests against New Zealand surpassing Chaminda Vaas’ 10 for 90 in Napier in 1995. Herath’s previous best performance against New Zealand was 8 for 209 at the SSC in 2009. Only five bowlers have picked up more than 11 wickets in a Test against New Zealand. Herath’s 6 for 43 in the second innings is also the best innings-bowling performance by a Sri Lanka bowler against New Zealand, surpassing Kumar Dharmasena’s 6 for 72 in Galle in 1998. It is also the third-best innings-bowling performance in Galle Tests. The win is Sri Lanka’s eighth by a margin of ten wickets. Six of these wins have come in home Tests. While it is Sri Lanka’s fourth ten-wicket win in Galle, it is their first ever win by that margin in matches against New Zealand. The ten-wicket loss is New Zealand’s 12th overall and their fourth since the start of 2009. Sri Lanka’s total of 247 is their lowest first-innings score in a win in Galle Tests. They have twice won after scoring below 200 in home Tests. The first came against West Indies in 2005 in Kandy, when they made 150, and the second was against England in Kandy when they won after scoring only 188. This is the seventh defeat for New Zealand in the subcontinent overall, and the second against Sri Lanka, after bowling out the opposition below 250 in the first innings. Among Sri Lankan venues that have hosted at least eight Tests, Galle has the joint-lowest draw percentage of 23. Since 2000, the draw percentage in Galle (21%) is the third-lowest among subcontinent venues that have hosted at least ten Tests. The P Sara Oval has the lowest draw percentage (10%) on the list. Since 1990, in matches involving top Test teams (excluding Bangladesh), the number of balls bowled in the game (1355) is the fourth-lowest in a Test in Sri Lanka (results only). The lowest is 1066 in the Test against Pakistan in 1994. The number of deliveries faced by New Zealand in the match (762) is the fourth-lowest for them in a Test in the subcontinent since 1970 (completed innings only). The lowest is 641 against Pakistan in Lahore in 2002. New Zealand’s total of 118 is their second-lowest in Tests in the subcontinent since 2000, and their joint eighth-lowest in the same period. For the 19th time overall and the second time since 2000, no New Zealand batsman managed to cross 20 in an innings. The previous time this happened was against Australia at the Gabba in 2004-05. It is also the fifth time (second for New Zealand) that a team has been bowled out in an innings against Sri Lanka without a single batsman passing 20.
