Statistical highlights of the opening day's play in the first Test between India and Australia, in Bangalore, on Thursday.
# When his score reached 24 during his innings of 123 off 343 balls, Ricky Ponting moved past India's Sunil Gavaskar's run-aggregate of 10,122 in 125 Tests.
# Ponting, playing in his 200th Test innings, registered his 36th hundred -- his sixth against India in 20 Tests and his first in India in nine 9 Tests.
# Ponting's tally of 36 centuries is exceeded only by India's Sachin Tendulkar (39).
# Ponting, with the hundred equalled the Australian record of six hundreds each by Matthew Hayden and David Boon against India.
# Ponting's 123 off 243 balls is his maiden hundred against India in India, eclipsing his 60 at Kolkata in 1997-98.
# Ponting's hundred against India at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium is his 16th as skipper, setting a record for most Test centuries as captain, bettering the record of Allan Border and Steve Waugh, who both had hit 15 hundreds.
# Harbhajan Singh has dismissed Ponting on nine occasions in 10 Tests -- the most times Ponting has been dismissed by any bowler.
# Simon Katich (66 off 149 balls) recorded his fifth half-century against India -- his ninth in Test cricket.
# The 166-run stand between Katich and Ponting is Australia's best for the second-wicket at Bangalore, bettering the 78 between Allan Border and Andrew Hilditch in 1979-80.
The said stand is now the second-best by an Australian pair for the wicket against India in India, next only to the 204 between Neil Harvey and Jim Burke in the 1956-57 Mumbai Test.
