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Nine in a row
Wisden CricInfo staff - March 7, 2002
Sri Lanka's victory was their ninth in consecutive Tests. Only Australia (16) and West Indies (11) have ever won more successive Test matches. Sri Lanka's 2001-02 run started with an innings victory over India in the third Test at Colombo's Sinhalese Sports Club in Sept 2001. They then beat Bangladesh once, and both West Indies and Zimbabwe 3-0. This was the first of the nine victories outside Sri Lanka. In those nine wins, Muttiah Muralitharan took 83 wickets at an average of 15.23.
At the third attempt, Sri Lanka won a Test at the Gaddafi Stadium. Pakistan won there in 1981-82, and the 1998-99 match was drawn. Sri Lanka also became the second team to win the Asian Test Championship: Pakistan won the first one, beating Sri Lanka in the final at Dhaka in 1998-99.
In his third Test, Mohammad Sami, became the 30th person, and the third Pakistani to take a Test hat-trick when he dismissed Buddika Fernando, Nuwan Zoysa and Muttiah Muralitharan with successive deliveries. Sami also took a one-day hat-trick against West Indies at Sharjah in February, and is the second person, after Wasim Akram, to take a hat-trick in both Tests and one-dayers.
Test hat-tricks
Sami has played 10 international matches – three Tests and seven one-dayers – in which he has taken almost as many hat-tricks (two) as he has scored runs (six). He has yet to score a run in a Test, and is believed to be the only man to have more hat-tricks than runs.
Sami took his hat-trick either side of the lunch break, though that is not the most striking instance of a split hat-trick. In the 1988-89 Australia-West Indies series, Courtney Walsh and Merv Hughes both took hat-tricks that were spread over two innings.
Sami's hat-trick came in his third Test, but this is not the earliest instance of a bowler taking a hat-trick: England's Maurice Allom, New Zealand's Peter Petherick and Australia's Damien Fleming all took hat-tricks on debut.
Of Sami's 12 Test wickets to date, six have been out for a duck, four of them bowled.
Sri Lanka made 528, the seventh time in their last nine Tests that they have exceeded 500 in the first innings. Starting with the third Test against India at the SSC in Colombo last August, their scores have been: 610 for 6, 555 for 5, 590 for 9, 288, 637 for 9, 586 for 6, 505, 418 and 528.
This was only the second time Sri Lanka have scored 500 in 61 Tests overseas. The first was against England at The Oval in 1998, when they made 591. It was also their highest score in 28 Tests against Pakistan, surpassing the 479 they made at Faisalabad in 1985-86.
Kumar Sangakkara, playing in his 20th match, made his fourth and highest Test century. His previous-best was 140, against West Indies at Galle in November 2001. It was also his first hundred outside Sri Lanka, and his fourth in the last eight months. In 11 Tests in that period, Sangakkara has never failed to reach double figures. His scores have been: 105*, 31, 13, 47, 54, 140, 15, 45, 55, 128, 42, 29, 56 and 230: 990 runs at an average of 76.15.
His 230 is the second-highest Test score by a wicketkeeper. Andy Flower made 232 not out for Zimbabwe against India at Nagpur in 2000-01.
Sangakkara is the second Sri Lankan wicketkeeper, and the sixth in all, to make a Test double-century.
The full list is:
Andy Flower (Z) 232 v India, Nagpur, 2000-01
Kumar Sangakkara (SL) 230 v Pak, Lahore, 2002
Taslim Arif (P) 210 v Aus, Faisalabad, 1979-80
Imtiaz Ahmed (P) 209 v NZ, Lahore 1955-56
Adam Gilchrist (A) 204 v South Africa, Johannesburg, 2001-2002
Brendon Kuruppu (SL) 201 v NZ, Colombo, 1986-87
Sangakkara made the highest score in 28 Tests between Sri Lanka and Pakistan, passing the 211 made by Pakistan's Ijaz Ahmed in the final of the last Asian Test Championship in 1998-99.
Sangakkara and Sanath Jayasuriya added 203, the highest second-wicket partnership in 32 Tests at the Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore. It surpassed the 151 added by Pakistan's two Khans, Mohsin and Majid, against Sri Lanka in 1981-82.
Jayasuriya's 88 was his highest score in Tests outside Sri Lanka since he belted 213 against England at The Oval in 1998. In that time Sri Lanka have played only nine Tests overseas, from which Jayasuriya made a solitary half-century, 56 against Pakistan at Rawalpindi in 1999-2000.
Marvan Atapattu's duck was his 18th in 95 Test innings, a Sri Lankan record. The record for a specialist batsman is Mike Atherton, with 20 - but he took 212 innings. Atapattu has been out for nought every 4.67 completed innings (18 out of 84) and has made 0 or in excess of 200 in 26% of his Test innings (25 out of 95).
Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.
© Wisden CricInfo Ltd
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