Cricket / What are the lowest totals in history of Test cricket?

Cricket Desk: India were restricted to their lowest ever total in Test cricket, collapsing to 36/9 in the second innings, leaving Australia with just a 90-run target on the third day of the first day-night Test at Adelaide on Saturday.

Australia got to the target with the loss of two wickets with Joe Burns helping himself to a half century.

The Indian innings ended when pacer Mohammed Shami was hit on the forearm by a short ball from Pat Cummins. He could not continue and the Indian innings ended at 36 for 9 in 21.2 overs.

India’s second innings at Adelaide:

1......3.2.1......W..........2.........4..2....W...................W....W...W...4W..........2.....1..2..2......WW..4..1.W.1.4...

— via Fox Sports Lab

India’s earlier lowest score was 42 at the Lord’s in 1974 against England. That innings has come to be known in Indian cricket parlance as the “Summer of 42”. The likes of Sunil Gavaskar and the late Ajit Wadekar had long carried the baggage of that English Summer, inarguably one of the worst in the annals of Indian cricket. It will now be replaced by the “Summer of 36” and the 2020 version is going to be hard to beat when it comes to India’s worst batting performances.

This is also the lowest score in the brief history of D/N Tests and the joint fifth lowest overall.

At one stage, India were reduced to 26/8 and looked like they might equal the lowest ever Test score (26 by New Zealand) but Hanuma Vihari’s boundary helped them avoid that ignominy.

The Indian batting was completely exposed by the extra bounce Australia’s pacers found on the day. But it wasn’t just that. The line and the length were immaculate as well and Kohli and his team will have a hard time figuring out where they went wrong.

Not a single Indian batsman was able to reach double figures as the home pacers, led by Josh Hazlewood (5-3-8-5) and Pat Cummins (10.2-4-21-4), decimated the tourists with some classy seam bowling.

It is not only India’s lowest total ever in Tests, but also the lowest by any team in 65 years.

This was also only the second instance of all 11 batsmen of a side failing to reach the double figures in the history of Test cricket. Mayank Agarwal with nine was the top-scorer in a scoreboard that isn’t one Indian fans will like to look at.

The only other previous instance of such a complete demolition when England dismissed South Africa for 30 in 1924 with the top-scoring batsman being Herbie Taylor (7). The top-scorer, though, was Extras with 11 in that innings.

To finish on a slightly irrelevant note, Rahul Dravid managed a total of 305 runs (233, 72) by himself in the two innings combined during India’s famous win at this very venue in 2003. India managed have managed to score fewer than that (244, 36) in 2020.