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Australia v India, 4th Test, Adelaide, 3rd day
Hayden continues his India bashing
S Rajesh and HR Gopalakrishna
January 26, 2008
Stats highlights from the third day of the Adelaide Test between Australia and India.
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Matthew Hayden scored his sixth hundred in 14 Tests versus India, and averages 66.16 against them
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Matthew Hayden's outstanding run continues: his 103 is his 30th Test hundred, which puts him sixth in the all-time list, and third among Australians. He went past Don Bradman's mark of 29, and only Steve Waugh (32) and Ricky Ponting (33) are ahead of him. Hayden's 30th ton came in his 94th Test, a rate of 3.13 matches per hundred. Among the top six, his rate is easily the best.
Hayden has been especially dominant at home: 21 of his hundreds have come in Australia, where he averages 62.48. Overseas his average drops to 43.57. During the course of his innings Hayden also went past Allan Border as Australia's most prolific batsman against India: he has scored 1654 runs against them at an average of 66.16; Border's 1567 came at an average of 52.23.
His knock also made him the ninth batsman - and the fourth from Australia - to get to 5000 Test runs at home. Brian Lara leads the way with 6217, but in terms of averages, only Ponting, with an average of 62.68, is marginally ahead of Hayden among these nine batsmen.
For the eighth time in 11 innings, Hayden and Phil Jaques put together a 50-plus opening stand. The 159 they added is their highest partnership, and it lifted their average to 71.27. Hayden has been involved in 49 century stands, almost a third of them with Ponting.
Virender Sehwag spoke about Australia's surprisingly defensive tactics with the bat, and stats indicate it's highly unusual for them to score more than 300 at less than three runs per over. Since 2000, it has only happened six times, and only thrice at home.
Apart from Hayden's century and the opening stand, the biggest gain for Australia was Ponting's return to form. His unbeaten 79 is his tenth fifty-plus score in 34 innings against India. He averages 48.66 against India; the only other team against which he averages less than 50 in Tests is England (48.24).
S Rajesh is stats editor of Cricinfo
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