5 interesting facts about India's 292nd Test player Hanuma Vihari 

In the fifth and final Test between India and England, Virat Kohli chose to bring Hanuma Vihari in place of Hardik Pandya. The 24-year-old Hanuma Vihari finally got his Test cap after a string of amazing performances in domestic cricket.

England is now leading the series 3-1 against India. The fifth Test started with India aiming for a respectable series scoreline of 3-2. There have been question marks over the selection decisions, the obvious one being that of not playing Karun Nair in any of the Test matches.

Many former players were seen advising the Indian team to strengthen the batting line-up by bringing in a pure batsman for Pandya and finally the coach and captain have done so for the 5th Test match.

Hanuma Vihari has been the captain of the Andhra Pradesh side and has been avoiding the shorter format of the game to become a complete and technically correct longer format batsman. Here we take a look at some interesting facts about India's 292nd Test player.

#1 First Test player from Andhra Pradesh in 19 years

MSK Prasad played six Tests for India

Current chief selector MSK Prasad was given a chance to play for India in the 1999-2000 season. He played 6 Test matches in total after making his debut against New Zealand. The Andhra Pradesh Cricket Association would be hoping that Hanuma Vihari plays a longer innings than MSK Prasad in Test cricket and inspires the other youngsters from the state to follow.

#2 A stellar 2017-2018 Ranji season

Scored 302* against Odisha in the 2017-18 season

He amassed 688 runs in 15 innings in his first Ranji season at an average of 57.33. In the next season, the right-handed batsman was the fifth-highest run-scorer in Ranji Trophy, scoring 752 runs in 10 innings.Prior to the start of the 2016/17 domestic season, Vihari switched his base from Hyderabad to Andhra Pradesh, the state where he was born.

The 2017-2018 season saw him averaging 94, which also includes his highest first-class score of 302* that he made batting against Odisha.

#3 Part of U-19 team that won the junior World Cup in 2012

Failed to impress in the 2012 U-19 World Cup

He was picked as a replacement for Manan Vohra, who fractured his thumb a day before India's departure to Australia in the 2012 Under-19 World Cup.Though the Indian team won the trophy, Vihari had a mediocre tournament where he scored just 71 runs at an average of 11.83.

Vihari, alongside the 2018 U-19 World Cup winning captain Prithvi Shaw were summoned into the squad for the fourth and fifth Tests of the current England-India series in place of Murali Vijay and Kuldeep Yadav.

#4 The highest first-class average among contemporary players

Steven Smith has the best average among current Test players

He is on top of the table and behind him is suspended Australian batsman Steve Smith who is at 57.27. Vihari presently possesses a strong average of 59.79 in the first-class format and has scored 5142 runs in domestic cricket. He has scored 15 tons and 24 half-centuries in his eight years of the first-class career.

He even top-scored for Rest of India in the Irani Cup in March against Ranji Trophy champions Vidarbha. Vihari scored 183 against the bowling attack comprising of Umesh Yadav and 2017-18 Ranji Trophy leading wicket-taker Rajneesh Gurbani.

#5 Has Chris Gayle as his only wicket in the IPL

Chris Gayle remains Vihari's only IPL wicket

Hanuma Vihari was a part of Sunrisers Hyderabad in Indian Premier League but as a classic batsman, he didn’t have a good record there and scored just 280 runs with a poor average of 15.55. Vihari has only played 22 IPL games and last featured in the competition in 2015 (for Sunrisers Hyderabad). However, Vihari kept himself busy by playing in the Bangladesh Cricket League, and Shephered Neame Essex First Division League in England.

He picked up the wicket of destructive West Indies batsman Chris Gayle in the IPL and it remains his only wicket in the tournament.