Australia's rare high with spin, Sri Lanka's shortest innings
A look at some of the standout numbers from the Galle Test which lasted just over two days
Sampath Bandarupalli
01-Jul-2022
Nathan Lyon had an outstanding match • Associated Press
1 The 10-wicket win in Galle was Australia's first Test win in Sri Lanka while batting second. Their previous seven Test wins in Sri Lanka came when they batted first. Since 2003, Australia have won only four out of the 19 Tests when they batted second in Asia. The previous three wins in this period came in Bangladesh.
22.5 Overs batted by Sri Lanka in their second innings, their shortest all-out innings in Test cricket. The 24.2 overs they batted against Australia in the Melbourne Test in 2012 was their previous shortest innings. The 491 balls batted by Sri Lanka in this match is their lowest in a home Test and the third lowest in a Test match (where they were bowled out twice).
920 Number of balls bowled in the Galle Test. These are the fewest balls bowled in a completed Test match hosted by Sri Lanka. The previous shortest completed Test in Sri Lanka was 1056 balls in the 1986 Kandy Test between the hosts and Pakistan.
3 Number of Test matches with an average runs per wicket less than 25 and a run rate of four or more before the Galle Test. In fact, the run rate of 4.27 in this Test match is the ninth highest in a Test match and the highest in Sri Lanka.
10 Wickets for Australia's spinners in Sri Lanka's second innings. It is only the second instance of Australian spinners picking up all ten wickets in a Test innings since 1994. The other occasion was in 2017 in Pune, where Nathan Lyon and Steve O'Keefe took ten wickets between them in India's second innings.
18 Wickets between Australian spinners in Galle. Only twice have Australia's spinners taken more wickets in a Test match since 1913 - 19 against West Indies at the Adelaide Oval in 1930 and against England in 1934 at Trent Bridge. The previous instance of Australia spinners picking up 18 or more wickets in a Test match was against West Indies in 1989 at Sydney. The 18 wickets are also the most for Australian spinners in a Test match in Asia.
19.6 Bowling strike rate of Australia's spinners in this Test match, the second-best for any team's spinners in a Test since 1910 while taking 15-plus wickets. The best is 19.0 by the Australian spinners against India during the Pune Test in 2017.
Sampath Bandarupalli is a statistician at ESPNcricinfo