The two Chanderpauls

Shivnarine Chanderpaul made his Test debut in 1994. His son Tagenarine followed in late 2022.

Shivnarine became one of the leading Test batsmen for the West Indies for 20-odd years. So there was much anticipation when his son made his Test debut.

His scores in his first three Tests were 51 &45, 47 &17 and 207* & 15. That is 382 runs at 76.40

Compare this with Shivnarine’s first 3 Tests: 62, 19 & 50, 77 & 5 which is 213 runs at 42.60

Also, we note that Junior scored a double century in his 3rd Test about 60 days after his debut.

In contrast, Senior scored his first century in his 19th Test 3 years after his debut. The first of his two double centuries came in his 79th Test after 11 years. Another example of how the next generation did things in a hurry.

See: https://www.espncricinfo.com/cricketers/shivnarine-chanderpaul-51469

and https://www.espncricinfo.com/cricketers/tagenarine-chanderpaul-601968

200+ scores for and against India

RG Sharma made the 54th score of 200 and above in a Test for India. These include 3 of 300+ and 51 from 200-299. Kohli has the most such scores (7), although Sehwag has the highest scores both inside and outside India. Outside Asia, we go quite far down until we reach Tendulkar’s 241* at Sydney.

The first such score was Umrigar’s 223 in 1955, equalled in the next month by Mankad and then surpassed by him with 231 which remained the record until Gavaskar’s 236* in 1983.This was surpassed by VVS Laxman’s 281 in 2001, Sehwag’s 309 in 2004 and again by him in 2008.

The highest in a win is 309 by Sehwag, in a loss 201* by Sehwag and in a draw 319 by (who else) Sehwag. An unique triple.

Now we see who did the same against India:

4 triple centuries and 47 from 200-299.

McCullum and Ponting have each done this 3 times against India.

The highest score here is Jayasuriya’s 340, the highest outside Asia is Gooch’s 333 and the highest in India is M Jayawardene’s 275.

The best in a victory is 333 by Gooch, in a defeat 242 by Ponting and in a draw 340 by Jayasuriya. In fact, Ponting’s 242 is the highest in any Test defeat.

More on Test centuries in different innings

We first look at this chart of leading century-makers in Tests:

Most of the leading century makers such as Tendulkar, Kallis and Ponting have scored centuries in all 4 innings, though Steve Waugh made 32 centuries without any in the 4th innings. You can see that most of those in the above table did not do too well in the 3rd and 4th innings, though there are exceptions such as Sangakkara. Let us see if there are any who did equally well in all 4 innings. One has to go quite low down the table to find someone who scored one century in each innings (1111). The only such player was the South African Alan Melville. What is more odd is that these 4 centuries were in successive innings (though World War 2 intervened between the first and the second centuries)

You can see the full details here: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/282968.html

When he returned to Test cricket in 1947 he scored centuries in both innings, then one more and no other century in his career. He thus equaled the record of 4 centuries in successive innings set by JH Fingleton. Soon afterwards, Weekes surpassed this with 5 and many years later Dravid also made 4 in successive innings.

If we go to those who scored 8 centuries, there is no one with an equitable 2222. The nearest approach would be by B Mitchell (SA) with 2321, CC Hunte 2312 and at a stretch DM Bravo (1331).

For those with 12 centuries, the closest are: AI Kallicharan (3531), AR Morris (5322), Ijaz Ahmed (3522) and JG Wright (4431). Also note Hanif Mohammad and JH Edrich with 4440.

16 centuries: H Sutcliffe (6433)

20 centuries: GA Gooch (7373), ME Waugh (7922), PA de Silva (5771)

24 centuries: GS Chappell (7-11-5-1), IVA Richards (8-10-4-2)

28 centuries: HM Amla (12-6-9-1)

32 centuries: AN Cook (8-10-12-2)

36 centuries: R Dravid is the only one, with a rather asymmetric 15-15-5-1.

Review of Test centuries- September 2018

Data correct up to Sep 12, 2018 (after Eng-Ind series)

A record of the most Test centuries:

 

We can see that Steve Waugh scored 32 centuries, with none of them in the 4th innings. And there are some who thrived in the 4th innings. There are some who scored all 5 of their centuries in the first innings. And so on. We will look at these more closely in the next few posts.

The most recent addition was by AN Cook in his last Test.

 

Landmark-the 4000th Test century (Updated in July 2017)

 

During the long break between Test matches between mid-May and early August, one can look back at the landmarks passed during the 2016-17 season. Practically any Test series which starts between May and September is considered to be the 2017 season.

One landmark which went unnoticed was the neat round figure of 4000 Test centuries which was achieved by Roston Chase in his ultimately futile 101* in the fourth innings at Roseau.

Here are the landmark centuries, which can be easily identified through Statsguru. Here we have included the Aus v ICC World XI Test which started on 14/10/2005. And Matthew Hayden scored 111 in this match. Some may feel that this should not be counted as a “real” Test. That correction can also be made.

For the moment, we do include Hayden’s century in the list.

100th: J.Sharp, 105, Eng v Aus, match starting 09/08/1909

500th: RN Harvey, 178, Aus v SA, 31/12/1949

1000th: WM Lawry, 205, Aus v WI, 26/12/1968

1500th: GS Chappell, 115, Aus v Eng, 10/12/1982

2000th: ME Waugh, 137, Aus v Eng, 05/08/1993

2500th: RT Ponting, 144, Aus v Eng, 16/08/2001

3000th: W Jaffer, 100, Ind v Eng, 01/03/2006

3500th: KC Sangakkara, 168, SL v SA, 26/12/2011

4000th: RL Chase, 101*, WI v Pak, 10/05/2017

Note the high proportion of Australian batsmen in these landmark centuries.

Now if you disregard the ICC XI Test and Hayden’s century, the numbers from 3000 onward will change:

3000th: AN Cook, 104*,Eng v Ind, 01/03/2006 (and Jaffer moves to 2999. This was Cook’s Test debut)

3500th: TT Samaraweera, 102, SL v SA, 26/12/2001 (Sangakkara moves to 3499)

4000th: JT Root, 190, Eng v SA, 06/07/2017 (Chase moves to 3999)

Afterthought: These landmarks were found using Statsguru’s listing, going by the date of start of the Test and then in alphabetical order of the player’s names. But the order of completion of the century can be different. My old friend Sreeram Acehbdfg points out that if you take the order of completion of the century, then it was IM Chappell (165) who scored the 1000th century rather than his team-mate WM Lawry, in the Test between Aus and WI starting 26/12/1968.

Similarly, No 2000 appears to be R Mahanama, 151, SL v Ind, 04/08/1993. There might be other instances like this.