The Hindu : The famous pair sets new marks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 15, 2003

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Sport - Cricket

The famous pair sets new marks

By Mohandas Menon

The 303-run partnership between Rahul Dravid and V.V.S Laxman bettered the following landmarks:

* on 109, they went past the previous highest for India at Adelaide for the 5th wicket, which was the 108 between Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly in December 1999.

* on 197, they went past the previous highest for India in Australia for the 5th wicket, which was the 196 between Ravi Shastri and Tendulkar (Sydney, 1992).

* on 221, they went past the previous highest for India for the 5th wicket in an away Test match, the 220 between Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag against South Africa (Bloemfontein, 2001).

The partnership was only the third 300-plus stand by a visiting team in Australia. The two other were: Englishmen Jack Hobbs & Wilfred Rhodes (323, 1st wicket, Melbourne, 1912) and South African Eddie Barlow & Graeme Pollock (341, 3rd wicket, Adeliade, 1964).

The Dravid-Laxman partnership was also the third 300-plus stand against Australia for the 5th wicket in Tests. They had put on 376 at Kolkata in 2001, while the West Indian pair of Brian Lara and Jimmy Adams had put on 322 at Kingston in March 1999.

Dravid, when on 110, became the fifth highest run-scorer for India, going past the 6080 runs by Gundappa Viswanath.

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