If it's the second innings of a Test and Gautam Gambhir is coming out to bat, chances are he'll help himself to a significant score. His Test career is only 29 matches old, but Gambhir has already built a formidable reputation as a second-innings plunderer: in 23 such innings, he has scored five hundreds, and averages 62.52.
Over the years, even top batsmen have found run-scoring more difficult in the second innings than in the first due to a variety of reasons: the match situation can be tense, the pitches have normally deteriorated, and on some occasions there's the fatigue factor that sets in after spending several hours in the field. None of that affects Gambhir, apparently. His first-innings stats aren't ordinary by any definition - he averages 54.20 - but he takes it up a notch when he comes out to bat a second time. In fact, the numbers in his last ten second innings beggars belief: five centuries plus a 97, and a stunning average of 108.37.
His ability to score hundreds in second innings is especially remarkable - he has only played 23 innings, and he already has five, a ratio of 4.60 innings per century. It's second only to two batsmen (among those who've scored at least four second-innings hundreds) - the original Bradman and the Black Bradman. The Don scored 10 in 30, while George Headley, in his short Test career, made four in 18 innings. Had Bangladesh scored two runs fewer in the Mirpur Test and saved Gambhir the trouble of coming out to bat in the second innings, his ratio would've been marginally better than Headley's. During this sequence of five hundreds in successive Tests, four have come in the second innings, which is quite unusual - only Bradman has a similar sequence.
Source : http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/446908.html
Over the years, even top batsmen have found run-scoring more difficult in the second innings than in the first due to a variety of reasons: the match situation can be tense, the pitches have normally deteriorated, and on some occasions there's the fatigue factor that sets in after spending several hours in the field. None of that affects Gambhir, apparently. His first-innings stats aren't ordinary by any definition - he averages 54.20 - but he takes it up a notch when he comes out to bat a second time. In fact, the numbers in his last ten second innings beggars belief: five centuries plus a 97, and a stunning average of 108.37.
His ability to score hundreds in second innings is especially remarkable - he has only played 23 innings, and he already has five, a ratio of 4.60 innings per century. It's second only to two batsmen (among those who've scored at least four second-innings hundreds) - the original Bradman and the Black Bradman. The Don scored 10 in 30, while George Headley, in his short Test career, made four in 18 innings. Had Bangladesh scored two runs fewer in the Mirpur Test and saved Gambhir the trouble of coming out to bat in the second innings, his ratio would've been marginally better than Headley's. During this sequence of five hundreds in successive Tests, four have come in the second innings, which is quite unusual - only Bradman has a similar sequence.
Source : http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/446908.html
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