India staged a remarkable turnaround on the first day of the opening Test match of the two-match series against Bangladesh at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai after the visiting batsmen had reduced the hosts to 144 for six an hour after lunch. But home favourite Ravichandran Ashwin, who celebrated his 38th birthday two days ago, completed a brave 195-run winning streak with fellow all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja that brought India back to their feet and took them to 339 for six at stumps.
Under overcast skies and seam-friendly conditions in Chennai, Hasan Mahmud dismissed Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli for just 12 runs inside the first hour after India batted first. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant tried to recover but were run down by Nahid Rana and Hasan respectively after their 50-run stands. KL Rahul was also sent back after a short time, leaving India in trouble.
However, spin all-rounders Ashwin and Jadeja bailed India out. The right-hander played some great shots to take the lead and Jadeja too scored quickly when the Bangladesh bowlers ran out of plans. Ashwin eventually reached his sixth Test century, equalling former India captain MS Dhoni’s career score, which was also his second at home and the fastest of his career after he reached the mark in 108 balls.
With this knock, Ashwin also managed to emulate Sachin Tendulkar’s feat of scoring two consecutive hundreds at Chepauk. Ashwin had scored his first hundred in the second Test match against England on his home ground in 2021. Tendulkar, on the other hand, holds the record for a hat-trick of hundreds in Chennai – 155* against Australia in 1998, 136 against Pakistan in 199 and 126 against the Aussies in 2001.
The breathtaking partnership and the century victory left Indian legends Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Sourav Ganguly in absolute amazement.
A wealth of records from the Jadeja-Ashwin stand
The unbeaten stand of 195 runs between Ashwin and Jadeja is currently the highest partnership for the seventh wicket or less for India against Bangladesh in Test cricket. The duo surpassed the previous record of 133 between Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan for the tenth wicket in 2004 at Dhaka. This is also the duo’s best partnership, surpassing their previous record of 130 against Sri Lanka at Mohali last March. In total, Ashwin has been involved in four seven-wicket stands, behind only former India captain Dhoni (7).
Meanwhile, Ashwin has climbed to second place on the list of most Test centuries scored eighth or below. His current knock is his fourth such achievement, overtaking Pakistan’s Kamran Akmal and trailing only New Zealand legend Daniel Vettori.
