Stats – Corbin Bosch’s boss-mode outing in the Boxing Day Test

Stats – Corbin Bosch’s boss-mode outing in the Boxing Day Test

The South Africa speedster put in an all-round show on Test debut

• Corbin Bosch made history as the first South African to achieve a four-wicket haul (4 for 63) and score an unbeaten 81 on his Test debut. He is the 16th player overall to accomplish this feat.
• Dane Paterson and Corbin Bosch created a first for South Africa, with both pacers claiming four or more wickets in a Test innings after being introduced as first-change bowlers or later. This marks only the seventh occurrence of such an achievement in Test cricket history.
• In the first innings of the match, Dane Paterson and Corbin Bosch dominated the bowling for South Africa, collectively claiming nine wickets. While Marco Jansen secured the final dismissal, Kagiso Rabada went wicketless—a rarity in his stellar career. This marked only the third time in 69 Test innings on home soil that Rabada failed to pick up a wicket.

   

• Corbin Bosch continued to make headlines with the bat as well. His unbeaten 81 in South Africa’s first innings now holds the record for the highest score by any player batting at No. 9 on Test debut. This remarkable innings surpassed the previous record of 72, set by Milan Rathnayake against England in Manchester earlier this year.

   

• Adding to his debut heroics, Bosch reached his fifty in just 46 balls, making it the second-fastest fifty by a South African on Test debut. The only faster fifty was achieved by Dave Nourse, who reached the milestone in just 40 balls against Australia in 1902—a record that has stood for over a century.

   

• On the other hand, Pakistan’s Babar Azam has struggled to find form in recent times. Since January 2023, he has gone 18 innings without scoring a fifty, a concerning streak for one of the world’s leading batters. Among players who have played more than 15 innings in this period, Babar is the only specialist batter yet to cross the fifty-run mark.