Sneh Rana, Shafali Verma dazzle as records tumble in Chennai Test

The Indian women's cricket team secured a historic victory in the one-off Test against South Africa on Monday in Chennai, marking their third consecutive win in Test cricket.

This remarkable achievement has only occurred five times in the history of women's cricket, with Australia achieving it thrice and India once before.

India won all three Tests they've played against South Africa, and this latest win marked India's eighth Test victory out of 41 matches they played.

This winning streak also made Harmanpreet Kaur the joint-most successful Indian captain alongside Mithali Raj.

India’s batting performance in this Test was nothing short of extraordinary, breaking several records and setting new benchmarks in women's cricket history.

India scored at a run rate of 5.23, the highest ever in Test cricket history where a team batted over a day or 100 overs.

The match recorded the second-highest aggregate in women's Test history with 1279 runs, second only to the match between Australia and England in Nottingham, which saw 1371 runs being scored. 

India declared their innings at 603 for 6, the highest ever in  Test cricket.

Shafali: The Record Breaker        

• Shafali became the fastest to reach the double-hundred. She took 194 balls to reach her second triple-figure mark in the match. 
• A total of 229 runs (205 and 24*) placed her third in the list of most runs scored in a Test match.
• Shafali's 205 is the seventh-highest score in a Test innings in women's cricket. 
• She is now the second Indian to score a double century after Mithali Raj's 214 against England in 2002.
  
• Shafali now boasts the second-highest average for a Test batter with a minimum of 10 innings, at 63.

Centuries and partnerships

• This was only the second instance in women's Test history where both openers scored centuries - Shafali's 205 and Smriti's 149.
  
• Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma's 292-run partnership for the first wicket is the second-highest ever, just behind the 309-run partnership by Reeler and Annetts of Australia.
• Smriti got dismissed at 149 and that made her the only woman to get out before bringing a 150
• Harmanpreet and Richa Ghosh set a record scoring 143 runs from the fifth wicket.
• Four centuries were scored in this match, equalling the record set in 1986 between India and England.
• The match saw three hundred-run partnerships, making it the second joint-highest.
•  Richa’s 86 is the second-highest score by an Indian wicketkeeper, following Anju Jain's 110 in 1995.
•  Sune Luu's total of 174 runs (65 and 109) is the second-highest by a player in a losing cause, just behind Tammy Beaumont’s 230 runs (208 and 22) for England against Australia.

Bowling records

India's bowlers also left an indelible mark on the match, with exceptional individual and team performances. This match saw the highest number of overs being bowled in almost two decades, with a total of 363.4 overs being bowled, the last instance being in 2005 (England vs Australia in Perth which is 434 overs).

 Six out of seven bowlers took wickets in an innings, the second-highest in the game, with the record being seven bowlers (Australia vs England in 2009).

Sneh Rana:

• The off-spinner finished the match with a figure of 10 wickets for 188 runs in 65.3 overs. She bowled 16 maiden overs and bowled at an economy rate of 2.87. This is the sixth-best in a match by a bowler.
• Her first innings spell of 8 for 77, remains the third-best figure by a bowler, followed by Ashley Gardner’s 8 for 66 and Neetu David’s 8 for 53 in 1999 against England.
• Amidst this, she set an unwanted record for conceding the fifth-most runs in a Test match at 188 runs.

Proteas struggle:

•  Delmi Tucker and Masabata Klaas conceded 141 and 122 runs, respectively, ranking as the second and seventh highest in terms of runs conceded.
• Nadine de Klerk had the fourth-worst economy rate in an innings, giving away 79 runs in 12 overs with one wicket.

The match also saw 42 runs being conceded on byes, the third-highest in history. While Sinalo Jafta missed 16 runs behind the wicket, Richa Ghosh conceded 26 runs (18,8 ) in the two innings.