Visakhapatnam: Rohit Sharma and Mayank Agarwal became Thursday only the third Indian opening pair to share a 300-run partnership in the history of Test cricket.
Rohit Sharma and Mayank Agarwal achieved the feat with a stand of 317 runs in the ongoing the first Test against South Africa here.
Rohit, who made his debut as a Test opener here, was dismissed after scoring 176, while Agarwal scored his maiden Test hundred.
Besides Rohit and Agarwal, other Indian opening pairs to share a 300-plus partnerships in Test cricket are Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy (413 runs against New Zealand in 1956) and Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid (410 runs against Pakistan in 2006).
It took the 28-year-old Agarwal, who made his debut against Australia in Melbourne in December 2018, eight innings to register his maiden Test century. He also became the 86th Indian batsman to score a hundred in Test cricket.
Prior to Rohit-Agarwal’s stand of 317, India’s best opening partnership against South Africa was 218 set by Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir during the 2004-05 series. In the India-South Africa rivalry, the best opening partnership of 236 runs was set by Andrew Hudson and Gary Kirsten in 1996. During their 300-plus partnership Rohit and Agarwal also broke that record.
Agencies