Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay and other opening pairs scoring 150+ for a team in the same Test innings

Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay have scored 150+ in the same innings of a Test twice.

Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay scored 173 and 150 respectively against Bangladesh in the one-off Test at Fatullah. Bharath Seervi lists the opening pairs that scored 150+ in the same Test innings for a team and some more trivia.

India’s opening pair Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan looked pretty impressive against Bangladesh in the first innings of the one-off Test at Fatullah. The duo has been involved in two 275+ run partnerships now. They both have scored 150+ in the same innings of a Test twice. Even though both the partnerships were in the sub-continent and with once against Bangladesh, it is to be noted that in Test history there has been only two other pairs having scored 150+ in the same Test innings twice. Murali Vijay rapidly turning into India’s most dependable batsman

Dhawan scored nearly run-a-ball 173 and Vijay scored a steady 150 against Bangladesh in the rain-hit encounter. They shared a partnership of 283 runs. this was the third instance of two Indian openers scoring 150+ in the same Test innings and second between them. Dhawan had scored 187 on his debut and Vijay scored 153 at Mohali against Australia in 2013.  The first such occasion for India was in 1956 when Vinoo Mankad scored 231 and Pankaj Roy 173 and shared a record opening partnership of 413 which stood a record for more than 50 years. Ajinkya Rahane deserves praise for his selfless approach against Bangladesh in one-off Test

Overall, there have been 16 instances of both openers scoring 150+ for a team in a Test innings.

150+ by both openers in a Test innings

– The first pair to do so was Jack Hobbs-Wilfred Rhodes against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in 1912. The second instance also involved Jack Hobbs, almost 13 years later in 1925, at the same venue against the same opposition.

– There has been at least one such instance for each team except for West Indies and Zimbabwe. For Zimbabwe it has never happened that both openers scored centuries in the same innings. For West Indies, the best has been Desmond Haynes (167) and Gordon Greenidge (149) against England at St John’s in 1990.

– Bill Lawry-Bob Simpson and Graeme Smith-Neil McKenzie are the only two pairs to score double centuries in the same innings for their respective sides.

– The record opening partnership of 413 held by Vinoo Mankad-Pankaj Roy was broken by Graeme Smith-Neil McKenzie by adding 415 against Bangladesh at Chittagong in 2008 – 52 years later.

– While English pairs have done it the most number of times – four, Australia, Pakistan and West Indies have conceded the most number of times – thrice.

– India and Sri Lanka are the only teams against which no opening pair has scored 150+ in the same innings.

Pairs scoring 150+ in the same innings more than once

Vijay-Dhawan is the third pair to score 150+ in a Test innings on two occasions. The first to do so were Graeme Smith–Herschelle Gibbs and later Marvan Atapattu–Sanath Jayasuriya. Jack Hobbs is the other opener to be involved in two instances but with different partners – Wilfred Rhodes and Herbert Sutcliffe.

There is no instance of one of the opener scoring 150+ in each innings for a team. The closest was for England against South Africa at Johannesburg in 2005 where Andrew Strauss scored 147 in the first inning and Marcus Trescothick scored 180 in the second inning.

Footnote Trivia – What about Hayden/Langer?

Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer have the record of scoring 100s in the same inning six times as an opening pair but they both never scored 150+ in the same innings ever.

(Bharath Seervi is a cricket statistician who is obsessed with digging numbers, facts and records related to the game. An active member of Society of Cricket Statisticians of India, he blogs at www.cricketseervistats.blogspot.com. He can be followed on Twitter at @SeerviBharath and on Facebook here)

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