Record haul by Sehwag and India

The second day at the Brabourne Stadium was all about Virender Sehwag. He has pulverised bowling attacks before, but this was astounding even by his standards. His unbeaten 284 has so far consumed 239 deliveries, a strike rate of 118.82, which is his fastest 150-plus score in Tests. He features in three of the top four, and five of the top ten fastest double-centuries in Tests.

As was the case in his other big knocks, this one was superbly paced too. He started relatively slowly, scoring only 42 in the first 50 deliveries he faced, before upping the tempo. His next 50 balls fetched 55, while each of the next two 50-ball batches brought more than 70. The rate came down just a little bit towards the end of the day, as Sehwag scored 42 in his last 39 deliveries - even when he was tiring after a long day he still managed a strike rate of more than 100. He finished with 284, just 25 short of the all-time record for most runs in a single day, but it was the top score in a day in the last 76 years.

The table below shows none of the Sri Lankan bowlers escaped the Sehwag onslaught. Among the bowlers who bowled at least ten deliveries to him, all of them leaked runs at at least a run a ball - the most 'economical' was Chanaka Welegedara, who went for 45 in as many balls; against Nuwan Kulasekara and Rangana Herath the strike rate was more than 130, while Muttiah Muralitharan, who had another forgettable day, gave away 78 in 70. Along the way, he also became the third-fastest Indian - in terms of innings - to get to 6000 Test runs, after Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar. This was also Sehwag's sixth double-century, which puts him in fourth place, after Bradman, Brian Lara and Wally Hammond.

As in most Sehwag innings, he didn't believe in running too many singles and twos - 202 out of his 284 runs came in boundaries, which is an amazing 71%. That puts him only 36 away from the record for most runs in boundaries in a single innings - John Edrich got 238 out of 310 runs in fours and sixes against New Zealand in 1965. Sehwag's 202 puts him in fourth place.

Sehwag's sizzler ensured India scored their highest in a single day - their 443 went past the 417 they had scored on the opening day of the previous Test, in Kanpur.

While Sehwag was outstanding, he also received excellent support from Murali Vijay and Rahul Dravid, both of whom put together double-century partnerships with Sehwag. It's only the second instance in the history of Test cricket of the first two wickets each adding 200-plus runs. The earlier instance had also involved Sehwag and Dravid, with Jaffer being Sehwag's opening partner on that occasion, against South Africa in Chennai last year. After an opening stand of 213, Sehwag and Dravid added 268 for the second wicket in a high-scoring draw.