Bradmanesque Smith, spinners' dominance and India's cloud 9

The year 2017 was a stage for some memorable contests in red-ball cricket - Dharamsala, Dhaka, Abu Dhabi or Leeds - which yet again underlines the fact that the longest format of the game is far from extinction. For the second year in the running, innings wins outnumbered drawn matches, a clear indicator of game's state of health.

Test cricket fraternity welcomed Ireland and Afghanistan to its family and both are slated to make their debuts next year. It was also the year which saw Bangladesh's coming of age, winning Tests against Sri Lanka and Australia while also being competitive in New Zealand and in India. India extended their domination while England had a topsy-turvy ride marred with inconsistency. Steven Smith and Virat Kohli emerged as the batting giants of the year while spinners dominated the bowler's charts.

Key stats from Test cricket in 2017:

More results at the cost of draws

When skipper Graeme Cremer and wicketkeeper Regis Chakabva defiantly withstood the Windies attack on the fifth day of the second Test in Bulawayo, it marked a significant event - Zimbabwe played out their first draw in 12 years and 26 Tests. No other team has played as many Tests between two stalemates. It was the end of 22 successive Test matches with an outright result, starting from the drawn Test between New Zealand and South Africa in Hamilton in March 2017. The only other time when there was such a long run without a draw was more than a century ago - between 1884 and 1892. The first Test of the New Zealand-South Africa series in Dunedin was also a draw which brought an end to a 21-match sequence without a draw starting from the India-England Test in Rajkot in November 2016. There were only seven draws in 47 Tests in 2017 - the joint second lowest percentage of drawn games for any year with at least 20 Tests, equalling the 14.89% last year (same draws in as many number of Tests).

Years with fewest percentage of drawn Tests (Min 20 Tests)

Spin it to win it

The spinners dominated the list of leading wicket takers in 2017 with six of the top eight being spinners. Keshav Maharaj had the most successful year for a South African spinner with 48 scalps, ten more than Hugh Tayfield's 38 in 1957. Nathan Lyon catapulted into a genuine match winner in the sub-continent, taking 41 wickets in six Tests in India and Bangladesh. He was the leading wicket-taker of 2017 with 63 scalps, thereby becoming the first Australian spinner, other than Shane Warne and Richie Benaud (1959), to top the wicket chart in a calendar year. R Ashwin became the third bowler to take 50 wickets in three successive calendar years after Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan. Rangana Herath became the first left-arm spinner to take 400 wickets while Yasir Shah became the first spinner to take a five-fer in five consecutive Test matches.

Leading wicket takers in 2017

Steven Smith - the greatest since Bradman?

Yes, that is what the stats say at least. Smith's career average of 63.60 is surpassed only by the great Don for anyone who batted at least 20 times. He scored more runs than anyone else this year (1305) - the fourth successive year he has scored over 1000 runs. Only Matthew Hayden has done it as often in consecutive calendar years - five years between 2001 and 2005. Smith ended 2017 with 947 batting points in the ICC rankings for Test batsmen - second only to Don Bradman (961).

Root, Rahul and the conversion issue

England's Joe Root scored fifty or more in the first six Tests of the home summer to continue the run he had from last year's tour to the sub-continent. He equaled AB de Villiers's record of scoring a fifty in 12 consecutive Tests but only three of them were hundreds. On the other hand, Lokesh Rahul scored seven fifties in as many innings to equal the record for most successive innings with a fifty. He ended the year with nine fifties in 14 innings without reaching three figures even once - quite a contrast to his career till then when he had four hundreds as against one fifty. Only Allan Border scored more fifties in a calendar year without scoring a hundred - 11 in 1989.

India in 'Cloud Nine'

India extended their golden run which started from mid 2015 to the end of 2017. They now have nine successive series wins - equalling Ricky Ponting's Australia between 2005 and 2008. They also hold the unique record of holding the rubber against all nine oppositions since they beat Australia at home in March. This is just the fourth such instance of that happening and first time India had done so.

Teams holding rubber against all nine opponents