Vikrant Shekhawat : Dec 17, 2020, 08:29 AM
Cricket Desk: The 4-match Test series between Australia and India kick starts on Thursday when the two teams face off at the Adelaide Oval. This game will be played under floodlights making it the first-ever AUS vs IND Test match to be a day-night affair. The Australian team is affected by the fitness of the players quite a few of them including David Warner is ruled out from the first Test. India, on the other hand, will be having services of Virat Kohli for one last time on this Australian tour.Here are all the key stats and numbers ahead of the pink-ball AUS vs IND Test at the Adelaide Oval:0 – Virat Kohli is yet to score a century in professional cricket in 2020 and the Adelaide Test will be his last game of the current calendar year. His debut year 2006 (5 FC games and 1 List A match) was the only calendar year where Kohli failed to score a century in professional cricket thus far. In fact, Kohli’s International debut year 2008 (5 ODI games) is the only calendar year where he failed to score a ton in International cricket before 2020.1 – Rishabh Pant, on Thursday, will be the first player to get dropped from a Test match played by India on Australian soil despite scoring a century in his previous Test in Australia. Pant scored an unbeaten 159 in the 4th and final Test at the SCG during the 2018-19 tour. Pant scored no less than 25 runs in all the seven innings he batted during the 4-match Test series in the previous tour.Vinoo Mankad, Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath, Gundappa Viswanath and Ravi Shastri did score a century in their final Test appearance on Australian soil but were not around the Indian Test team by the time of India’s following tour to down under.6/6 – Australia has won all the six Test matches played at the Adelaide Oval with Steve Smith in the playing XI. Smith scored 491 runs in 11 Test innings at this venue at an average of 61.37 with help of a hundred and three fifties.6.88 – Joe Burns has a batting average of 6.88 in first-class cricket in the ongoing 2020-21 season. He scored only 62 runs in nine innings across the five first-class matches in this season with a best score of 29 and three ducks.7 – Australia has won all the seven day-night Test matches they have played thus far. No team other than the Aussies have even played more the four D/N Tests till date. The first Test in Adelaide will be the 2nd D/N Test featuring India with the first coming last year at the Eden Gardens against Bangladesh.The Test match starting on Thursday will be the 5th day-night Test for Australia at the Adelaide Oval with the previous four coming vs New Zealand in 2015, vs South Africa in 2016, vs England in 2017 and vs Pakistan in 2019.19.23 – Mitchell Starc has got a bowling average of 19.23 in the day-night Test matches. Across seven D/N Tests, Starc has claimed as many as 42 wickets with help of three 5-wicket hauls and a strike rate of 35.6.50 – Nathan Lyon has bagged as many 50 wickets across nine Test matches at the Adelaide Oval; the 2nd most number of Test wickets at this venue behind Shane Warne (56). Lyon has a bowling average of 26.12 in the longer format in Adelaide where he took four 5-wicket hauls.62.1 – Batting average of Mayank Agarwal across five D/N first-class matches he has played thus far. Mayank aggregated 497 runs across seven innings in the day-night FC games with help of a 161-run knock and four fifties.