Melbourne, Dec 26: After all the buzz, anticipation and preparation, the 55th Boxing Day Test finally got underway in front of a teeming MCG crowd. Opener Ed Cowan impressed on debut for Australia while Sachin Tendulkar took gurad against the Aussies for the hundredth time in his international career. Ricky Ponting, meanwhile, decided it was time to reply to all the criticism with a half-century, filled with signature strokes. Take a look at how Day 1 of the big series panned out for the two teams.

• This was the 79th Test match between the two teams – the 37th in Australia and 11th at MCG.

• This was the 55th Boxing Day Test – the 31st for Australia and 12th for India. Incidentally, Australia have played all their 31 Boxing Day Tests at home and that too at only one venue – MCG.

• Left-handed opening batsman Ed Cowan became the 427th player to represent Australia in Tests. Incidentally, he is the tenth debutant for Australia in 2011. This is the most since 1977, the year of Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, when 15 Australian players made their debuts.

• Sachin Tendulkar was playing his 100th international match against Australia. His tally includes 32 Tests and 68 ODIs. Sachin thus provided the fourth instance of a player making hundred international appearances against a particular opponent. The details:

• Sachin Tendulkar achieved the unique distinction of playing Test cricket against a father-son pair. Sachin was playing against Shaun Marsh in this Test; he had played four Tests against his father Geoff in 1991-‘92, which was the latter’s last Test series. Sachin is the first Indian to play a Test against a father-son pair.

• Geoff and Shaun Marsh are the 11th father-son pair to play against India. Geoff had played 10 Tests against India between 1985 and 1992. Interestingly, Geoff’s first and last Test series both were against India. Geoff had a rather forgettable first outing against India – scoring 5 & 2* at Adelaide in December 1985. Here his son got a duck on his first appearance against India.

• Ed Cowan’s 68 is the highest score by an Australian opener in his debut innings since Wayne Phillips’s 159 against Pakistan at Perth in 1983-‘84.

• The 113-run partnership between Ed Cowan and Ricky Ponting was only the second century partnership for Australia for the third wicket in 2011.

• Ricky Ponting ­– who scored 62 – made his 98th fifty-plus score in Test cricket, equalling Rahul Dravid’s tally. Now only Sachin Tendulkar – with 114 such scores – is ahead of him.

Ponting has now scored 2,073 runs against India, which takes him ahead of West Indies’ S. Chanderpaul’s aggregate of 2,038. Now only Clive Lloyd (2,344) and Javed Miandad (2,228) have scored more runs against India than Ponting.