• This was the 1654th Test match in cricket history
• This was the 123rd Test match between these two sides. The record now reads : England 51, South Africa 24, drawn 48
• This was the 50th Test match at this ground. Nottingham thus became the ninth Test ground to host 50 Test matches after Lord’s (106), Melbourne (95), Sydney (89), The Oval (85), Manchester (68), Leeds (63), Adelaide (61) and Port-of-Spain (52).
• Ed Smith and James Kirtley were making their Test debut. They became 616th and 617th player to represent England in Test cricket.
• Graeme Smith became 17th South African (on 18th occasion) to be dismissed ‘hit wicket’. Herbie Taylor has suffered this fate twice.
• Alec Stewart’s 72 in first innings took his career tally to 4475 in 141 innings of 80 Tests – maximum by a keeper-batsman in Test cricket. Stewart moved ahead of Zimbabwean Andy Flower who has aggregated 4404 runs in 55 Tests (100 innings). At the end of this match, Stewart has aggregated 4480 runs in 142 innings. The accompanying table lists the most successful keeper batsmen in Test history :

  Runs    Keeper       For   Mts  Inns    NO    HS     Ave    100s  50s    0s  
  4480    AJ Stewart   Eng    80   142    15   173    35.28     6    23    11  
  4404    A Flower     Zim    55   100    18   232*   53.71    12    23     4  
  4389    APE Knott    Eng    95   149    15   135    32.75     5    30     8  
  4356    IA Healy     Aus   119   182    23   161*   27.40     4    22    18  
  3633    RW Marsh     Aus    96   150    13   132    26.52     3    16    12  
  3146    PJL Dujon    WI     79   111    11   139    31.46     5    16     8  
  2940    AC Gilchrist Aus    45    62    12   204*   58.80     8    16     5  
  2759    SMH Kirmani  Ind    88   124    22   102    27.05     2    12     7  
  2611    FM Engineer  Ind    46    87     3   121    31.08     2    16     7  
  

• England’s second innings total of 118 was their sixth joint lowest total in an innings against South Africa.
• The disparity of 327 runs between England’s two innings in this match was their second largest in a match against South Africa and sixth largest against all countries. England’s two innings were separated by 577 runs in the match against West Indies at Kingston in 1929-30. England’s record disparity between the two innings against South Africa still remains 343 runs (208 & 551) at this same ground in 1947.
• Nasser Hussain top scored in both innings for England. This was the third time he was performing this feat. He had earlier done so against West Indies at St. John’s in 1997-98 and against South Africa at Lord’s in 1998. Hussain thus equalled the tally of Herbert Sutcliffe and Jack Hobbs for England. Now only David Gower and Mike Atherton are ahead of Hussain for England with four such instances each.
• Mark Boucher’s seven dismissals in the match equalled the existing South African record of most dismissals by a keeper in a match against England. Boucher himself had performed this feat on two other occasions – at Lord’s in 1998 and at Johannesburg in 1999-00
• Boucher has now made seven or more victims in a Test on 10 occasions. This equalled Australia’s Ian Healy’s Test record of seven victims in a Test on most occasions. However Healy kept wickets in 119 matches as against Boucher’s 63.
• Kirtley provided the 51st instance of an Englishman taking a five-wicket innings haul in the debut match. His figures (6-34) are the eight best by an Englishman in an inning on debut.
• Vaughan won his first match as England’s captain in second match.

(Article: Copyright © 2003 Rajneesh Gupta)