Stats highlights from a banner day for Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul in Pallekele

Bharath Seervi12-Aug-20177 – Number of consecutive fifty-plus scores for KL Rahul in Tests. He equalled the record of Everton Weekes, Andy Flower, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Kumar Sangakkara and Chris Rogers for the most consecutive fifty-plus scores. Rogers and Rahul are the only players to have not converted any of their seven fifties in that sequence into a hundred.188 – Opening stand between Shikhar Dhawan and Rahul, which is the highest for the first wicket by a visiting team on the island. They went past the 171 runs added by Manoj Prabhakar and Navjot Sidhu at SSC in 1993. Four of the top-five opening stands by visiting teams in Sri Lanka belong to India.2 – Century partnerships for the opening wicket for India in Tests away from home since 2011, in 65 innings. Before the 188-run stand in this match, the last such partnership came against Bangladesh in 2015. Dhawan and M Vijay had added 283 in Fatullah.2011 – Last time an India opener hit more than one century in a Test series away from home : Rahul Dravid in the Pataudi Trophy in England in 2011. Dhawan is the sixth India opener to achieve this feat. Sunil Gavaskar (five times) and Dravid (twice) had done it more than once.104.67 – Dhawan’s strike-rate in this series is the third highest for a batsman who has faced 300-plus balls in a Test series. Ben Stokes struck at 109.01 in Basil D’Oliveira Trophy in 2015-16 and Virender Sehwag at 108.14 against Sri Lanka in 2009-10. Dhawan has had strike-rate of over 90 in each of his four innings in this series.ESPNcricinfo Ltd141 – Runs for which India lost their six wickets after the openers had put on 188 runs in 39.3 overs. None of the other batsmen could reach fifty and none of the other partnerships could yield more than 40 runs. The run-rate, which was 4.75 at the end of Dhawan-Rahul partnership, dropped to 3.65 at stumps.32 – Average of Sri Lanka’s spinners on the first day, the best among all the four innings in this series so far. The slow bowlers dismissed India’s top five. The fast bowlers averaged 158 runs per wicket, the worst in this series for the home team.74.12 – Average of India’s openers in this series. Only three times have they had a better average in a series where they have batted in more than two innings.235.29 – Dhawan’s strike-rate off the short balls. He scored 40 runs off the 17 short balls bowled to him. Eight of his 17 boundaries came from short balls. Against good-length balls, he only had a strike-rate of 47.36, collecting 18 runs off 38 balls without hitting a single boundary.