De Villiers joins elite club

Stats highlights from the second day's play between South Africa and Australia at St George's Park, Port Elizabeth

Shiva Jayaraman21-Feb-2014

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AB de Villiers's century in this innings was his 19th in Tests and his first at this venue. De Villiers has scored 1361 runs at 80.05 including six hundreds and six fifties in his last 12 Tests, since November 2012. Only Kumar Sangakkara averages higher than de Villiers among batsmen with a minimum of 300 runs during this period.

De Villiers has hit five Test hundreds against Australia equalling the record for the most tons against Australia by a South Africa batsman. Eddie Barlow, Graeme Pollock and Jacques Kallis. have also scored five Test centuries against Australia.

JP Duminy's 123 was his first century at home and his third in Tests. The innings ended what was a rather lean patch for him in Tests at home. Since his last fifty at home, against England in Centurion in December 2009, Duminy had managed just 128 runs at 11.36 from 11 innings. He also completed 1000 Test runs in this innings. He has now scored 1046 runs at 34.86, with three hundreds and five fifties.

De Villiers and Duminy added 149 runs for the sixth wicket, which is the highest partnership for this wicket at St George's Park, beating the 131-run partnership between Faf du Plessis and Dean Elgar against New Zealand in 2013.

Their partnership was also the second-highest sixth-wicket stand for South Africa against Australia and the highest such partnership since 1970 when Graeme Pollock and Tiger Lance added 200 runs for the sixth wicket at Kingsmead.

Nathan Lyon's five-for was the first five-wicket haul by a spinner at this venue in more than 50 years. The last spinner to take a five-wicket at this venue was also from Australia: Richie Benaud took 5 for 82 in South Africa's second innings in 1958. Spinners have taken only five five-wicket at this ground.

Lyon's five-wicket haul was also the first by an Australia spinner in South Africa since Shane Warne's 6 for 86 at Kingsmead in 2006. Click here for five-wicket hauls by Australia's spinners in Tests in South Africa. The last five-wicket haul by an Australia offspinner in South Africa came in 1970, Ashley Mallett's 5 for 126 in Cape Town.

Lyon took his first five-for in four Tests in South Africa. In his previous three Tests here, Lyon had totally bowled 59 overs, taking six wickets at 31.83. In this Test so far, Lyon has already bowled 46 overs and taken five wickets at 26.00.

Australia bowlers were made to toil hard on this slow pitch. For the first time since the second Test against India in Hyderabad in March last year and in 22 innings, Australia's bowlers were required to bowl 150 or more overs to dismiss the opposition. Including this innings, they have had to bowl 100 or more overs in only four of the 13 innings since the start of the Ashes in Australia last year. This was also the first time in 25 innings, since the Mohali Test in March 2013, that Australia conceded 400-plus runs to the opposition in an innings.

Since the Ashes, Australia's regular fast bowlers had taken 96 wickets in six Tests, at 18.23 and at a strike rate of 40.6. However, South Africa's doughty batting and the benign conditions meant that Australia's fast bowlers took only two wickets from the 86 overs they bowled between them in the first innings, collectively giving away 229 runs. Mitchell Johnson, who had taken 49 wickets since the Ashes at a staggering average of 13.14 and a strike rate of 27.1, removed Hashim Amla early enough, in his third over of the innings. But since then, he has bowled 135 deliveries and conceded 67 runs without taking a wicket.

Shiva Jayaraman is a sub-editor (stats) at ESPNcricinfo.com