Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley created history on Tuesday (June 24) during the fifth day of play in the first Test match of the Anderson-Tendulkar trophy between England and India at the Headingley Cricket Stadium in Leeds as the hosts charged towards a massive target of 371.

The opening pair put up a huge stand of 188 runs before Crawley was dismissed by Prasidh Krishna in the 42nd over, following a knock of 65 runs. Meanwhile, Duckett scored the sixth Test century of his career as he continued his incredible run of form across all three formats of the game.

Duckett and Crawley's partnership is the first instance of an opening pair putting a partnership of 150 or more runs against India in the fourth innings of a Test match. The duo broke a record set by West Indies' Allan Rae and Jeffrey Stollymore in 1953 at Port of Spain, Trinidad, with an unbeaten stand of 142.

Player	Team	Runs	Venue	Year
Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley	England	188	Headingley	2025
Allan Rae and Jeffrey Stollymore	West Indies	142	Port of Spain	1953
Gary Stead, Matt Horne	New Zealand	131	Ahmedabad	1999
Brian Bolus, Mike Smith	England	125	Mumbai (Brabourne)	1964
Najmul Hussain Shanto, Zakir Hasan	Bangladesh	124	Chattogram	2022

Overall, it is the fourth-highest fourth-innings partnership against India behind Joe Root- Jonny Bairstow (267 in 2022), Roy Dias-Duleep Mendis (216 in 1985), and Ab de Villiers-Faf du Plessis (205 in 2013).

Duckett and Crawley are the highest in the 21st century by an opening pair in the fourth innings of a Test match. The previous highest partnership for the first wicket since 2000 was between Australia's Cameron Bancroft and David Warner against England in 2017 at the Gabba.

This is also the highest opening partnership in the fourth innings at Headingley, with the previous highest being a 112-run stand between New Zealand's Bert Sutcliffe and Verdun Scott in 1949 against England.

Overall, this is the second-highest opening partnership for England in the fourth innings and the highest at home. Michael Artheron and Graham Gooch had put up a 203-run opening stand against Australia in 1991 at Adelaide.

Atheron-Gooch and Crawley-Duckett are fourth and fifth on the worldwide list of highest opening partnerships in the fourth innings.

Gordon Greenidge-Desmond Haynes (250 for West Indies vs England, Lord's 1984), Chetan Chauhan-Sunil Gavaskar (213 for India vs England, Oval 1979) and Michael Slater-Mark Taylor (208 for Australia vs England, Sydney 1995) are the only opening pairs with higher opening partnerships while chasing in a Test match.