Birmingham, August 10: The much anticipated return of India’s destructive opening batsman Virender Sehwag was by far the biggest anti-climax on a day when very little went right for the visitors. Sehwag’s fifth golden duck in Tests was somewhat erased from memory by the end of the India innings thanks to a spirited knock from captain MS Dhoni (77). But overall, the England seamers prevailed with another clinical performance that simply blew the opposition away. At stumps, the England openers had even amassed the highest opening partnership for their side on the tour. Take a look at the day’s story in numbers.

• This was India’s sixth Test at this venue. Of the previous five played here, India had lost four and drawn one.

• Virender Sehwag registered a first-ball duck – his 13th duck in Test cricket. Interestingly, five of the ducks have come against England. Among the specialist Indian batsmen only one, Pankaj Roy, has aggregated more ducks in a career against England – eight in 25 innings.

• This was Sehwag’s fifth golden duck in Test cricket. He now shares the world record for recording the most golden-ducks as an opener with fellow countryman Sunil Gavaskar and Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya.

Most golden-ducks by openers in Test cricket

5 Sunil Gavaskar (Ind)

5 Sanath Jayasuriya (SL)

5 Virender Sehwag (Ind)

4 Chris Gayle (WI)

• India were reeling at 111 for seven at one stage, but the last three wickets added 113 runs as India finished at a rather respectable 224.This was the first instance since 2004-05 that the last three wickets outscored the first seven wickets for India. The last instance was at Bangalore against Australia (2005/05), when the top seven wickets contributed 118 and the last three made 121.

• MS Dhoni and Praveen Kumar added 84 runs for the eighth wicket in 84 balls – a run-rate of 6.00. This is the highest run-rate for India in an eighth-wicket partnership of 50 or more. Parthiv Patel and Javagal Srinath had also managed a run-rate of 6.00 during their 73-run partnership against West Indies at Kolkata in 2002-03.

• MS Dhoni (77) made his highest score in the series. This was his second fifty in 2011. He has now scored 223 runs this year at an average of 20.27.

• India have not yet reached 300 in the series. Their highest has been 288 in the first innings of the Nottingham Test.

• The Indian scorecard wore a strange look at the end of their innings. All odd-numbered batsmen (excepting the unbeaten No. 11) made at least 22, while none of the even-numbered batsmen went beyond 4.

• Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook more than doubled the tally of runs they had gathered as openers in the series so far (they finished Day 1 on an unbeaten 84). In the previous two Tests, England’s opening partnerships had been 19, 23, 7 and 6 – 55 runs at an average of 13.75.

• Strauss scored his first fifty in nine innings this summer for England. His scores in his previous eight innings against Sri Lanka and India were: 20, 4, 0, 3, 22, 32, 32 and 16; 129 runs at an average of 16.12 .

• The unbroken 84-run partnership between Cook and Strauss is England’s second fifty opening partnership in Tests this year. The only other fifty-plus opening stand came against Australia at Sydney in January when these two added 98 runs.

• Cook and Strauss have now moved into fourth place on the list of most successful opening pairs ahead of Australia’s Michael Slater and Mark Taylor.

A look at the most successful opening pairs in Test cricket