Stats Analysis

Stats - England's win drought in Australia, Alex Carey's memorable debut

Also, Root's remarkable run-scoring spree continues, and, hey, where did the lbw go?

Australia last lost a home Test match to England in 2011  •  Getty Images

Australia last lost a home Test match to England in 2011  •  Getty Images

Australia have won the first Test of the latest edition of the Ashes by nine wickets, a start that, going by history, makes them well-placed to pull off a series win. Here's a look at the key numbers from the three-and-a-bit days of Test cricket at the Gabba.
11 - Consecutive Test matches for England in Australia without a win . Only once did England spend longer without a Test win in Australia - 12 games between 1937 and 1951. Their last Test win in the country came in the 2011 New Year's Test in Sydney, after which they have lost ten of the 11 played.
32-1 - Series results in favour of Australia when they won the opening match of a home Test series in Brisbane. The only Test series they lost after going 1-0 up at the Gabba was during the Ashes in 1954-55, won 3-1 by England.
22 - Test defeats as captain for Joe Root, the joint-highest for an England captain, alongside Alastair Cook. Earlier during the home season, Root became England's most successful Test captain with 27 wins.
8 - Catches for Alex Carey in the Brisbane Test, the most by anyone on their Test debut. He also equalled the record for most dismissals as a wicketkeeper on Test debut, levelling with Brian Taber against South Africa in 1966 and Chris Read against New Zealand in 1999.
403 - Wickets for Nathan Lyon in Test cricket. He joined the exclusive club of bowlers with 400-plus Test wickets when he claimed the wicket of Dawid Malan on the fourth morning. He is only the third Australian to achieve this milestone after Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath.
1544 - Runs scored by Root in Tests in 2021. No one else has breached the 1000-run mark yet this calendar year. His tally this year is also the most for England in a calendar year, eclipsing Michael Vaughan's 1481 runs in 2002. Root's 1544 is the joint-sixth-highest runs in Tests by a player in a calendar year - two more Ashes Tests will be completed by the end of 2021.
31 - Wickets to fall in this Test match - all either caught out (27) or bowled (4). The last Test match without a single lbw dismissal was the Port of Spain Test in 2016 between West Indies and India, washed out after 22 overs of play. However, the last Test match with 30-plus wickets to end without an lbw dismissal was the Wellington Test between New Zealand and Sri Lanka in 2015 - it had 31 catches, three run-outs and one bowled. The last such match hosted by Australia was the 2013 Ashes Test, also at the Gabba, when 37 wickets fell, all either caught or bowled, with one run-out.
89 - Root's score in the second innings, his highest in Australia across ten Tests. Although Root has not scored a hundred in Australia, he has seven fifties in 19 Test innings. Only two visiting batters have had more Test fifties without a century in Australia - eight each by Tom Hayward and Nasser Hussain.

Sampath Bandarupalli is a statistician at ESPNcricinfo