Unwanted records aplenty on day to forget for Pakistani bowlers

Pakistani bowlers achieved several milestones, albeit unwanted, during New Zealand’s first innings of the second Test against Pakistan at Christchurch.

The hosts declared their innings after scoring 659-6, leaving Pakistan under the fear of an innings defeat.

The score, 659-6, is the fourth-highest innings total scored against Pakistan in Test cricket. Only thrice have teams scored more runs against Pakistani bowlers in an innings of Test match; 790-3 by West Indies in 1958, 690 by New Zealand in 2014 and 675-5 by India in 2004.

New Zealand batsmen Kane Williamson and Henry Nicholls scored 369 runs for the fourth wicket. This was the highest fourth-wicket partnership for any wicket against Pakistan and the highest against Pakistan in more than 10 years.

Interestingly, Pakistani bowlers have conceded three 300+ partnerships in the last nine Tests. There have only been five triple-century partnerships in Test cricket since start of January 2019 and three of them are against Pakistan. South Africa and Sri Lanka conceded one each in during the last two years.

Pakistani bowlers have overall conceded 15 triple-century partnership and 13 of them came since the start of 2000s. Before the start of this century, Pakistan had conceded only two partnerships of over 300 but conceded 10 such partnerships between January 2000 and December 2018.

Pakistani bowlers also conceded 64 runs as extras, which include 17 runs in terms of wide balls – the most runs conceded of that nature by Pakistani bowlers in an innings. Sixty-four extras is also Pakistan’s jointly most extra conceded in an innings.

Debutant Zafar Gohar conceded 159 runs without taking a wicket, which is the worst debut by a Pakistani and second-worst wicket-less debut ever after 0-163 by Adil Rasheed.

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