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Eight tons in a Test, and high totals without a hundred

Six new entries had to be made on the honours board at Lord's after the first Test between England and West Indies finished on Monday and all six belonged to England. Four of their batsmen scored centuries in the first innings, Monty Panesar took 6 for 129 and Kevin Pietersen scored another hundred in the second. Although West Indies scored 437 in their first innings, nobody scored a hundred. This week we look at matches with the most hundreds and five-wicket hauls.

The highest number of centuries and five-fors by one team in a match is seven, although there were only six performers. Saeed Anwar, Taufeeq Umar, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf and Abdul Razzaq pummeled Bangladesh for hundreds and Danish Kaneria scalped six in each innings as Pakistan won by an innings and 264 runs at Multan in 2001.

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The timeless Test at Adelaide in 1921 had a total of six hundreds (Australia 4, England 2) and three five-wicket hauls (Australia 2, England 1) and is one of three Tests with a total of nine such performances. The other two are the Sydney Test between Australia and England in 1924 and the West Indies-India Test at Kingston in 1953.

The maximum number of hundreds in a Test is eight, scored by South Africa and West Indies at Antigua in 2005. AB de Villiers, Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis and Ashwell Prince scored centuries and when West Indies batted, Chris Gayle replied with 317 and three others weighed in with centuries too. The match was a dull draw with only 17 wickets falling in five days.

There have been three other Tests with seven hundreds scored, the most recent also being between West Indies and South Africa at Cape Town in 2004. The seventh century in that match was Dwayne Smith's audacious 105 off 105 balls on Test debut.

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England's effort in the past week at Lord's was the only the third time in Test history that a team had five different centurions in a match. In the other two matches, there were five centuries in a single innings. One was the Pakistan-Bangladesh match mentioned above, while the other is the Kingston Test between West Indies and Australia in 1955. Colin McDonald, Neil Harvey, Keith Miller, Ron Archer and Richie Benaud, at No 8, helped Australia pile up 758 and beat West Indies by an innings and 82 runs even though they had two centurions of their own.

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In the recent Lord's Test, West Indies managed 437 in the first innings without anyone scoring a hundred. It's a pretty big score but nowhere close to the highest total without a hundred. India scored 524 for 9 against New Zealand at Kanpur in 1976. The highest score of the innings was Mohinder Amarnath's 70 while five others got past fifty.

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