England's lefties and Root's hundreds
Statistical highlights from the first day of the first Ashes Test in Cardiff
Bishen Jeswant
09-Jul-2015
Joe Root now has the second-most hundreds (7) - after Alastair Cook (9) - for an English batsman at the age of 24 • Getty Images
7 Left-handed batsmen in England's playing XI - only the second instance in 321 Ashes Tests. The other time this happened was during the Sydney Test in 2014.
7 Runs posted by England's opening pair - Alastair Cook and Adam Lyth - during the first innings of this Test. England's last two opening stands in the Ashes were 6 & 7, also in the Sydney Test of 2014.
1 The score for which Ian Bell was dismissed lbw by Mitchell Starc. He has been dismissed for the same score four times in his last eight Test innings. He has also scored two ducks in this period.
1 Fifty-plus score for Gary Ballance in his last seven Test innings - his 61 in the first innings of this Test. Ballance had four 50-plus scores in the five innings before that.
2 Centuries scored by Joe Root in the Ashes. He is only the second England batsman after Len Hutton to score two Ashes centuries at the age of 24.
118 Balls faced by Joe Root to reach his century, the fastest of his seven hundreds. His previous fastest was off 125 balls, against West Indies in 2015. Root's slowest hundred is off 247 balls, against Australia in 2013.
79.6 Root's batting average at No. 5, the best in Test history for any batsman (min. 1000 runs). Second on the list is Steven Smith who has scored 1198 runs at an average of 66.55.
153 The partnership between Root and Ballance - England's second-highest fourth-wicket stand in Ashes Tests since 1998, the highest stand being the 310-run partnership between Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood in Adelaide in 2006.
Bishen Jeswant is a stats sub editor at ESPNcricinfo