Benedict Bermange has the statistics on Ricky Ponting's 150th Test and England's top run-machines.
Benedict's back to bring you the very best Ashes stats and facts
The latest instalment in cricket's most prestigious series - the Ashes - is here.
As well as keeping the lads bang up-to-speed in the commentary box,
Sky Sports statistician Benedict Bermange will have every angle of the series covered here on
skysports.com...
So if you think you know your stats, think again, because Benedict is bound to have something to amaze you. If you want to ask him a question then simply fill out the feedback form below.
So, without further ado, here are his statistics for the second Test in Adelaide...
At Brisbane
Alastair Cook batted for a total of 924 minutes - the longest any England batsman has batted in a single Test. Only Sachin Tendulkar with 5,177 had scored more runs than Cook's 4,666
before turning 26.
The last time Australia and England
drew two Tests in a row was in January 1991 at Sydney and Adelaide and the last time the
first two Tests in an Ashes series were drawn was in 1970-71 (Brisbane & Perth).
The
last 18 captains to win the toss at Adelaide dating back to 1993 have chosen to bat and in the last 8 Tests there have been 9 totals of more than 500.
Test cricket is still played on 10 of the 11 grounds to host Test cricket in the 19th Century - the exception being Old Wanderers in Johannesburg. Of those grounds, Adelaide has the
highest average runs per wicket:
| Ground | Average |
| Adelaide Oval | 35.68 |
| Trent Bridge, Nottingham | 32.27 |
| Kennington Oval, London | 31.83 |
| Lord's, London | 31.33 |
| Old Trafford, Manchester | 30.94 |
| Newlands, Cape Town | 30.34 |
| Sydney Cricket Ground | 29.99 |
| Melbourne Cricket Ground | 29.76 |
| Headingley, Leeds | 29.48 |
| St George's Park, Port Elizabeth | 26.27 |
This is
Ricky Ponting's 150th Test. He is the fourth player (Tendulkar, S.Waugh, Border) to play that many.
He scored twin centuries in his 100th Test against South Africa at Sydney in 2006. Here are how the other three have performed in their 150th matches - ranging from a
century (Border) to a golden duck (Waugh).
| Score | Name | Team | Against | Venue | Season | Result |
| 105 | AR Border | Australia | New Zealand | Brisbane | 1993/94 | Won |
| 6 & 14 | SR Tendulkar | India | Sri Lanka | Colombo-PSS | 2008/09 | Lost |
| 0 | SR Waugh | Australia | Pakistan | Sharjah | 2002/03 | Won |
At Brisbane, for the first time in 39 Tests,
Mitchell Johnson went wicketless in a Test. It was also the eighth time he went at more than four runs per over, but even more worryingly for Australia, seven of those performances have come in his last 17 Tests.
Globally, seven of the last eight Tests to be played have been
drawn. This is the worst stretch of result-less matches since there were 8 draws in 9 Tests from August to November 1992.
Only three batsmen have scored more runs in their
first 14 Tests for England than
Jonathan Trott:
| Name | M | Inns | NO | Runs | HS | Avge | 100 | 50 |
| WR Hammond | 14 | 23 | 3 | 1493 | 251 | 74.65 | 5 | 4 |
| L Hutton | 14 | 23 | 2 | 1374 | 364 | 65.42 | 5 | 3 |
AJ Strauss | 14 | 26 | 2 | 1323 | 147 | 55.12 | 5 | 5 |
IJL Trott | 14 | 25 | 3 | 1319 | 226 | 59.95 | 4 | 4 |
Trott is 13th in the
overall list, which is headed by Bradman (1889), Mark Taylor (1609) and Mike Hussey (1554).
He is just the second England batsman to score
centuries in his first two Ashes Tests, after Herbert Sutcliffe who actually scored 3 centuries in his first two Ashes Tests in 1924-25.
Only one batsman has scored
centuries in his first three Ashes Tests: Greg Blewett, who notched up scores of 102* & 12, 20 & 115, 7 & 125 in a period spanning from 1994/95 to 1997.
Ian Bell has passed fifty on nine occasions against Australia but has failed to get to three figures in scoring 718 runs. Marcus Trescothick is the only England player to score
a thousand Ashes runs without a century and Bert Oldfield & Alick Bannerman did so for Australia.
Marcus North has been dismissed 31 times in Test cricket, 15 of which have been in single figures. In fact, he has only scored in the range of 22-67 once in his Test career in his 33 innings implying that if he gets in, he stays in.
