17 years later, Australia match Sehwag's Boxing Day score at MCG
Dec 26, 2020
New Delhi [India], December 26 : As India bundled Australia for 195 on the opening day of the Boxing Day Test on Saturday, an interesting fact came to the fore. Exactly 17 years back on this day, former swashbuckling opener Virender Sehwag had hit exactly 195 against the hosts at Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day -- December 26.
It was the third Test of India's tour of Australia in 2003/04 and Sehwag opened the innings with Aakash Chopra and smashed the Aussie bowlers all around the park. His 195-run knock came off 233 balls, studded with five sixes and 25 fours.
Sehwag missed out on the double ton by just five runs, but guided India to 366 in the first innings after India opted to bat first.
For Australia, Ricky Ponting suppressed Sehwag's knock as the former went on to score a double ton and also his highest score in Test cricket. Ponting amassed 257 runs as he spent 590 minutes at the crease troubling the visiting bowlers. Opener Matthew Hayden also scored 136 runs and helped his side to post a gigantic total of 558.
Indian batting collapsed in the second innings as Steve Waugh-led side bundled them for 286 and later chased down 95 runs to secure a comfortable nine-wicket win.
Coming back to the ongoing Boxing Day Test at MCG which is also the 100th longest format game between the two teams, India had the upper hand on the opening day. The visitors bundled Australia for 195 as Jasprit Bumrah and R Ashwin shared seven wickets between them. With the Indian bowlers once again stealing the show, it was a test of facing 11 overs of quality pace bowling for the batsmen in the closing stages of the opening day.
While Shubman Gill came out with flying colours, having hit an unbeaten 38-ball 28, Mayank Agarwal failed to stand up and get counted as he fell for a duck. At stumps, India's score read 36/1 with Gill batting on 28 and Cheteshwar Pujara giving him company on 7. The visitors trail by 159 runs with nine wickets in the bag.
