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Home > Sports News > Cricket News > Article > Flashback When Dravid Tendulkar Jaffer and Karthik rewrote cricket history

Flashback: When Dravid, Tendulkar, Jaffer and Karthik rewrote cricket history

Updated on: 26 May,2016 05:22 PM IST  | 
mid-day online correspondent |

It was on this day in 2007 that Dinesh Karthik, Wasim Jaffer, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar rewrote cricketing history to become the first top-4 to all score centuries in one Test innings. Here's a recap of the match...

Flashback: When Dravid, Tendulkar, Jaffer and Karthik rewrote cricket history

India were brought down to earth by Bangladesh on March 17 during the 2007 ICC World Cup as they beat the tournament favourites by five-wickets at Port-of-Spain.


India, under Rahul Dravid's captaincy, then had to wait till May to exact revenge on its neighbours by thrashing them in the 2nd Test at Dhaka with four Indian top-order batsmen -- Wasim Jaffer, Dinesh Karthik, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar -- each getting a century.



The match started on May 25, 2007, with Bangladesh winning the toss and putting India into bat.

Openers Wasim Jaffer and Dinesh Karthik came out to bat. The opening duo saw off the new ball and started accelerating. Karthik and Jaffer both were lucky but ended up recording the biggest opening partnership for India vs Bangladesh in Tests with an unbeaten stand of 175.

The Karnataka right-hander scored 129 and Jaffer made 138.

At tea, Karthik was forced to retire owing to the heat and humidity and Rahul Dravid joined Jaffer in the middle. Jaffer teamed up with Dravid for another unbeaten stand of 106.

Batting at 138, Jaffer succumbed not to the Bangladesh bowling, but the heat and humidity, and had to retired ill. Sachin Tendulkar then joined Dravid.

India thus had an unbeaten partnership of 281 for the first wicket with three cricketers involved.

Dravid finished Day 1 unbeaten on 88. India thus ended the first day without losing a single wicket but with both openers back in the pavilion.

India's score of 326 for no loss at the end of Day 1 is among the best by teams, beating Australia’s 18-year-old record of 301 without the loss of a wicket against England at Trent Bridge. Interestingly, this was also the first time in Test cricket history that both openers had retired ill and the top four batsmen had combined to score more than 300 runs.

On Day 2, Dravid brought up his 24th Test hundred. Dravid and Tendulkar added 127 for the 'first' wicket. India were at 408 and needed only five more runs to equal Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy’s 52-year-old record of 413 for the opening wicket. But Dravid (129) was dismissed by Mohammad Rafique. It had taken Bangladesh 108.2 overs to pick India's first wicket.

Karthik, unbeaten on 82, returned and completed his maiden Test hundred before being dismissed for 130 by Mashrafe Mortaza.

Tendulkar ensured he reached his 37th century and remained unbeaten on 122. Thus on May 26, 2007, India rewrote history books as it was the first time that the first four top-order batsmen had all scored a century in the same innings in a Test match.

India posted a mammoth 610 in the first innings and Bangladesh succumbed to an innings defeat. Zaheer Khan took seven wickets in total on a flat deck and he was awarded the Player-of-the-match.

Brief scores:

India 610 for 3 decl. (Wasim Jaffer 138 retired ill, Dinesh Karthik 129, Rahul Dravid 129, Sachin Tendulkar 122*; Mohammad Rafique 2 for 181) beat Bangladesh 118 (Zaheer Khan 5 for 34) & 253 (Mashrafe Mortaza 70, Mohammad Ashraful 67; Ramesh Powar 3 for 33) by an innings and 239 runs.

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