Yashasvi Jaiswal continued his outstanding recent form, hitting 73 – his fourth fifty-plus score in as many matches – as India battled to stay in the fourth India-England Test in Ranchi.
Jaiswal’s winning streak rose to a new level in Ranchi. Rohit He handled the pitches, which had erratic bounce at times, and helped India get off to another strong start despite Sharma’s early loss.
The Indian captain fell twice in the third over of the innings and hit James Anderson, conceding his 697th Test wicket to the England veteran. Jaiswal is typically aggressive at the crease, lunging forward on Olly Robinson’s second delivery and then attempting, albeit unsuccessfully, to sweep Shoaib Bashir’s first ball to the ground for the fourth time. I tried.
England kept left-arm spinner Tom Hartley out of the attack until the 32nd over, which appeared to prevent Jaiswal from turning the ball towards himself. With Rajkot’s double hundred, Jaiswal broke the 200-plus mark for the second time in the series and surpassed several records. Most notably, the 22-year-old opener tied the all-time record for most innings in a Test with six (12) and broke the Test record for most in a single Test with six in a series. That’s what happened.
At Ranchi, Basheer bowled a new record in the first six innings of the day. This was Jaiswal’s 23rd six in the series (and year), breaking Virender Sehwag’s long-held record of 22 sixes for most hits in a year by an Indian Test batsman. Jaiswal already ranks third in the all-time list of all nationalities. Brendon McCullum (33 sixes in 2014) and Ben Stokes (26 sixes in 2022) are the only players to have hit more sixes in a calendar year than Jaiswal. Of course, it’s only been February and in India he has at least eight more Tests to play in 2024.
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With recent scores over 50, Jaiwal has also broken several other major records. In the first seven innings of the series, Jaiswal has now scored 618 runs. India’s record for most series runs belongs to Sunil Gavaskar, who scored 774 runs in four Tests against West Indies in 1970-71. Jaiswal has yet to score at least one goal and in some cases three goals in this series, so there is a good chance he will get this record as well.
Even if he finishes the series without scoring another run, he would have already scored more runs than Sachin Tendulkar scored in a single Test series. He is just 74 runs behind Virat Kohli’s career best series score (692) and one run behind Rahul Dravid’s series highest score (619).
Jaishwal also ranks 7th in the list of most runs scored in the series by a player under 22 years of age. Donald Bradman’s record of 974 points set in the 1930 Ashes will probably be out of reach, but his 824 points scored by Garfield and Sobers against Pakistan in 1957-58 may be. I don’t know.
Gavaskar’s 774 runs against West Indies is also the all-time record for runs scored by an opener of any age in a five-match Test series. Mark Taylor holds the overall record for most runs batted in by an opener in a single series, but his record 839 runs are the highest in his six Tests in England in 1989. Ash was recorded in his series.
Jaishwar has already broken the streak, but there’s a good chance he’ll break it a few more times before his streak ends.
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