Runs in defeat and Dravid's hunger

A few statistical highlights from India's victory over Australia at the Adelaide Oval.

Australia's defeat marked only the ninth time in Test history that a team scored more than 500 and yet ending up on the losing side. In fact, Australia figure three times in the list, with two of their scores among the top three. The last time this happened, though, Australia were the victorious side, when Sri Lanka scored 547 in Colombo in 1992, and then collapsed for 164 in the fourth innings, chasing 181 for victory. India are the only team to lose after scoring more than 500 in the second innings: at Leeds in 1968, they amassed 510 after following on, but still ended up losing to England by six wickets.

Teams losing after scoring more than 500
Team	Score	Vs	Match inn	Year & venue	Lost by
Australia	586	England	1	Sydney, 1894-95	10 runs
Pakistan	574/8 dec	Australia	2	Melbourne, 1972-73	92 runs
Australia	556	India	1	Adelaide, 2003-04	4 wickets
Sri Lanka	547/8 dec	Australia	2	Colombo, 1992	16 runs
West Indies	526/7 dec	England	1	Port-of Spain, 1967-68	7 wkts
Australia	520	South Africa	1	Melbourne, 1952-53	6 wickets
England	519	Australia	1	Melbourne, 1928-29	5 wickets
India	510	England	3	Headingley, 1967	6 wickets
South Africa	506	Australia	2	Melbourne, 1910-11	89 runs

It was also only the fourth instance of a team successfully chasing more than 200 in the fourth innings at the Adelaide Oval. Two of the three earlier run-chases had been achieved by West Indies: the first was in a low-scoring match in 1951-52, while the second happened 30 years later, when Clive Lloyd's unbeaten 77 took West Indies past a testing target of 236.

Team	4th innings score	Against	Year
Australia	315 for 6	England	1901-02
West Indies	239 for 5	Australia	1981-82
West Indies	233 for 4	Australia	1951-52
India	233 for 6	Australia	2003-04

In 15 previous home series, Australia had never trailed. The last time it happened was ten years back in 1993-94, when South Africa stole a famous five-run win at Sydney to go 1-0 up in the three-Test series. Australia, though, came back with a bang, thrashing South Africa by 191 runs at Adelaide to level the series. However, historically haven't managed to turn around an early setback - the last five times they trailed in a home series, dating back to their series against West Indies in 1984-85, they lost four and drew one (the above-mentioned one against South Africa).

Ajit Agarkar, much-maligned for his inability to translate potential into performance, turned in the best bowling figures by an Indian seamer overseas since Kapil Dev's 8 for 106, also at Adelaide, in 1985-86. That game ended in a high-scoring draw, with India making 520 in their first innings - only three fewer than their total this time around - in reply to Australia's 381. Significantly, the average run-rate in that match was 2.56; this time, it was 3.62, a difference of more than one run per over.

Ricky Ponting became only the fifth batsman to score a double-hundred and a duck in the same match. Interestingly, three of the four earlier instances came against Australia, and last batsman to achieve it before Ponting was Viv Richards, in 1984-85 at Melbourne.

Double-century and duck in the same Test
	Scores	Against	Year & venue
Dudley Nourse (SA)	0 & 231	Australia	1935-36 Johannesburg
Imtiaz Ahmed (Pak)	209 & 0	New Zealand	1955-56 Lahore
Viv Richards (WI)	208 & 0	Australia	1984-85 Melbourne
Seymour Nurse (WI)	201 & 0	Australia	1964-65 Bridgetown

Meanwhile, Rahul Dravid followed up his fourth double-century with a fifty. It was the third time he achieved that feat, following unbeaten knocks of 200 and 70 against Zimbabwe at Delhi in 2000-01 and 222 and 73 against New Zealand at Ahmedabad earlier this year. The only other occasion when he got a double-hundred - at The Oval in 2002 - India batted just once in the match.

S Rajesh is assistant editor of Wisden Cricinfo.

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