A first for a subcontinent team

Stats highlights from the fourth day of the Perth Test

Jan 19, 2008, 12:49 PM

Stats highlights from the fourth day of the Perth Test.

Ricky Ponting made only 45, which is less than his average score in the fourth innings as captain © Getty Images

India's 72-run win broke a sequence of 16 consecutive Test wins for Australia, dating back to the Boxing Day Test in 2005. It's the second time India have played spoilsport to Australia's 16-match winning spree - in Kolkata in 2001, they had beaten Steve Waugh's team by 171 runs.

This is the first Test win by a team from the subcontinent in Perth. The nine previous matches here - five for Pakistan, and two each for India and Sri Lanka - had all ended in Australian wins, almost all of them by convincing margins. It was also Australia's first defeat in Perth since February 1997.

The last time Australia lost at home was way back in December 2003, and India were the opponents then as well. Since that Adelaide Test, Australia had won 22 out of 25 home games before they ran into the inspired Indians in Perth.

India's win is their 30th overseas, 17 of which have come in this decade. It is also their 22nd outside the subcontinent, and their fifth in Australia.

Australia's total of 340 is their second-highest in the fourth innings in a match they have lost. Against England at Old Trafford in 1981, they scored 402 and yet lost by 103 runs.

Australia's fourth-innings score was also the highest total of the match, and yet they ended up on the losing side, making it only the 11th such instance, and the fourth since 2000. The last time a team made the highest score of the match in the fourth innings and lost was in June last year, when West Indies made 394 but lost by 60 runs against England at Old Trafford.

Ricky Ponting managed only 45, which was a relative failure, considering how well he usually does in the fourth innings. He averages 58.85 in the last innings of a Test, but as a captain he has done even better, averaging 93.25, with three centuries and two fifties in 15 innings.

Ponting was caught by Rahul Dravid off Ishant Sharma for the second time in the match. Only once previously has he been dismissed by the same bowler-fielder combination in both innings - he was caught by Romesh Kaluwitharana off Chaminda Vaas in Adelaide in 1996.

Irfan Pathan was especially effective against the left-handers in this Test. He dismissed both Australian openers in the first and second innings. He averaged 14.75 against the left-handers; Stuart Clark was his only success versus right-hand batsmen, who averaged 56 against him.

Andrew Symonds didn't score too many this time, but when he reached 11 he became the 87th Australian batsman to get 1000 Test runs.

Mitchell Johnson's unbeaten 50 is easily his highest Test score, going past his previous best of 28 in the Sydney Test earlier this year. Thanks to the fact that he has remained unbeaten in three of his four innings, Johnson's Test average is a Bradmanesque 99. The 73-run ninth-wicket stand between him and Stuart Clark is the highest for that wicket at home for Australia versus India.

It was a game to forget for Michael Hussey: not only did he get his first Test duck, it was also the first time he lost a Test match.

Irfan Pathan Ricky Ponting Australia India Australia vs India India tour of Australia