How Indian openers broke a 32-year old record

After a mediocre show from the batting unit in the first two Test of the series, the visitors embarked their remarkable comeback in a refraining manner. With the third going on and Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli resuming the day, the Indian team is surely sitting in a commanding position and would be eyeing for their second ever Test win at the Trent Bridge in Nottingham.

The bedrock of run scoring was set up by the openers Shikhar Dhawan and Kannaur Lokesh Rahul who came together for a crucial 60 run stand for the opening wicket. This was the third opening pair tested by the skipper Virat Kohli and the team management after a miserable failure from Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay in the first Test at Edgbaston and from Murali Vijay and KL Rahul in the second Test at Lords. 

Not only in the first innings, the duo put on a 60 run partnership in the second innings as well and on the course, they shattered a 32-year old record. This is the first instance since 1986 when the Indian openers have stitched a 50+ partnership in both innings of the test match in any of the SENA countries i.e. South Africa, England, New Zealand, Australia. This is the fourth instance when the Indian openers have managed to do, the last time this feat was achieved by the duo of Krisnamachari Srikkanth and Sunil Gavaskar against England in 1986 when they formed a partnership of 53 and 58 in both the innings of the Test match.

Apart from them, the other two occasions belonged to Farooq Engineer and Abid Ali who got 56 and 83 against Australia in Sydney in the year 1986, and way back in the year 1936 by Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali who while batting together put on 81 and 64 against England at the Kennington Oval. This stat depicts how the Indian openers have always found it difficult to get going in any of the SENA countries as it took them 32 years to build a 50+ runs partnership in both innings of a Test match.

Here are some tweets regarding this record;

Two 50-plus opening stands for India in a Test outside Asia:

v Eng, The Oval, 1936
v Aus, Sydney, 1968
v WI, POS, 1971
v WI, Georgetown, 1971
v Eng, Birmingham, 1986
v WI, Basseterre, 2006
v ENG, Nottingham, 2018*#ENGvIND

— Umang Pabari (@UPStatsman) August 19, 2018

KL Rahul left just 3% of the deliveries he faced, the lowest figure for any innings where he's faced 10+ balls. #ENGvIND

— The CricViz Analyst (@cricvizanalyst) August 19, 2018

Same status.

So, it's only the 4th time overall (in 147 Tests) and first time since Birmingham 1986 (in 82 Tests) that India have two 50+ opening stands in a Test played in Eng / Aus / SA / NZ.#ENGvIND https://t.co/gXGdPme6fW

— Rajneesh Gupta (@rgcricket) August 19, 2018

Indian openers to score 30-plus runs in each innings of a Test in England this century:

Murali Vijay, Nottingham, 2014
SHIKHAR DHAWAN, Nottingham, 2018*#ENGvIND

— Umang Pabari (@UPStatsman) August 19, 2018

Three 50-plus stands for India for first two wickets combined in a Test match played in SENA countries:

v Australia, Sydney, 1968
v England, Nottingham, 2018*#ENGvIND

— Umang Pabari (@UPStatsman) August 19, 2018