Centuries in the fourth innings of Tests

Hope you have seen the previous post:

Centuries in the third innings of Tests

Finally, we look at centuries in the fourth innings:

It is clearly more difficult to make a century in the fourth innings than the other innings. The most centuries here is by Younis Khan (5), while 4 others have scored 4 each (GC Smith, RR Sarwan, RT Ponting and SM Gavaskar).

Among current players there are KS Williamson (3), AK Markram, BA Stokes and several others with 2.

Among Indian players, there are Gavaskar (4) and Tendulkar (3).

Those who loved the fourth innings:

W Watson (Eng) made both his centuries in the fourth innings.

No one else has scored 2 or more centuries in the fourth innings and none in other innings.

The next best is 2 out of 4 by JB Stollmeyer.

Those who hated the fourth innings:

There is a long list of prominent batsmen who scored many centuries but none in the fourth innings.

This is headed by SR Waugh (Aus) with 37 centuries. Next are SPD Smith (Aus) with 32, M Yousuf (Pak) with 24, JE Root and V Sehwag with 23.

It is just possible that Smith and Root will score a century in the fourth innings in the future. Or Smith may cross Waugh’s record of 37.

Centuries in the second innings of Tests

Hope you have seen the previous post:

Centuries in the first innings of Tests

We now look at centuries in the second innings:

It is clear that the most centuries here are by Tendulkar (18), followed by M Jayawardene and Dravid (15) and then by Kallis, Ponting and Kohli (14).

Other Indian players with 10+ centuries are Gavaskar and Sehwag (12)

Current players with 10+ centuries are Kohli (14), Root and Williamson (10).

Those who loved the second innings:

MJ Horne (NZ) and RT Simpson (Eng) made all their 4 centuries in the second innings.

Next are 3 by BA Edgar (NZ), Qasim Umar (Pak) and RJ Burns (Eng).

Also 5 out of 6 by NCL O’Neill (Aus).

Those who hated the second innings:

BA Stokes (Eng) made 10 centuries but none in the second innings.

Next are SP Fleming (NZ), G Gambhir (Ind) and KJ Hughes (Aus) with 9.

To be continued.

Test scores of 200+ by Indians and others

Information correct as on Oct 11, 2019.

First we look at those who have made 5 or more scores of 200 or more:

We can see that Kohli is now equal with Hammond and M Jayawardene in making 7 scores of 200+. The previous record of 6 for India was shared by him, Sehwag and Tendulkar. Kohli is also the only current player above.

The only other player with more than one triple century is CH Gayle, whose 4 scores of 200+ include 2 triples.

A total of 374 scores of 200+ have been made in Tests. This includes one quadruple century, 29 triples and 344 doubles.

All those who have made 200+ for India are tabulated below:

We also look at scores of 200+ in ODIs:

There are only 8 such scores.

RG Sharma has made 3, with a top score of 264 which is the ODI record.

Others who have made 200+ scores in ODIs are Fakhar Zaman, CH Gayle, MJ Guptill, V Sehwag and SR Tendulkar.

And for T20Is:

The highest score is 172 by AJ Finch. There are 2 other scores above 150, by AJ Finch again and H Zazai.

 

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.

Cricket odds and ends-symmetrical careers

Symmetry in wins, losses and draws:

So far we have seen lists of Test players with “unsymmetrical” careers-either the dominance or absence of wins, losses and draws. But there are a few cases where the players ended their career with exactly the same number of wins, draws and losses:

TBA May (Aus):      8 wins, 8 losses and 8 draws.

Akram Raza (Pak): 3, 3 and 3.

JM Wiener (Aus):    2, 2 and 2.

And there were some who ended up with almost similar numbers of wins, losses and draws:

NJ Astle (NZ):          81 (27 wins, 28 losses, 26 draws)

EH Hendren (Eng):  51 (16, 18, 17)

FMM Worrell (WI):   51 (18, 17, 16)

ED Weekes (WI):     48 (16, 15, 17)

N Kulashekara (SL): 21 (7,6,8)

Symmetry and asymmetry in centuries in particular innings

You would expect that all leading batsmen (say with 20 or more centuries) would have scored centuries in all 4 innings. But there are some exceptions:

SR Waugh (Aus):      32 (No 4th)

M. Yousuf (Pak):       24 (No 4th)

V Sehwag (Ind):        23 (No 4th)

IR Bell (Eng):            22 (No 4th)

MC Cowdrey (Eng):  22 (No 4th)

DC Boon (Aus):        21 (No 4th)

G Kirsten (SA):         21 (No 4th)

DC Boon (Aus):        21 (No 4th)

Some other odd cases:

H Masakadza (Zim) and A Melville (SA) each scored 4 centuries, with one in each innings.

Melville was the first to score 4 Test centuries in consecutive innings-though World War 2 came in between the first and second century.

AF Rae (WI) and Wasim Raja (Pak) each scored all their 4 centuries in the 1st innings

MJ Horne (NZ) and RT Simpson (Eng) each scored all their 4 centuries in the 2nd innings

Cricket odds and ends-1

(From 2015 and not updated)

Normal service seems to have resumed at Lord’s, complete with attritional batting by England. Here are a few odds and ends from Test cricket: (These do not include the current Test at Lord’s, or the Aus v ICC XI Test in 2005).

Most runs by a player who never scored 300:

15921 by SR Tendulkar (HS 248*)

13278 by RT Ponting (HS 257)

13265 by RS Dravid (HS 270)

Most runs by a player who never scored 200:

8463 by AJ Stewart (HS 190)

8029 by ME Waugh (HS 153*)

7728 by MA Atherton (HS 185)

Most runs by a player who never scored 100:

3142 by SK Warne (HS 99)

2084 by CPS Chauhan (HS 97)

1993 by DL Murray (HS 91)

Most runs by a player who never scored 50:

1010 by Waqar Younis (HS 45)

981 by FS Trueman (HS 39*)

940 by CS McDermott (HS 42*)

Most runs by a player who never scored double figures:

45 by BJ Arnel (HS 8*)

34 by M Mbangwa (HS 8)

31 by Arshad Khan (HS 9*)

31 by GB Studd (HS 9)

Now the converse of these:

Least runs by a player who scored a triple century:

879 by A Sandham (HS 325)

2047 by LG Rowe (HS 302)

2061 by RM Cowper (HS 307)

Least runs by a player who scored a double century:

320 by DBSP Kuruppu (HS 201*)

501 by Taslim Arif (HS 210*)

503 by BJ Hodge (HS 203*)

Least runs by a player who scored a century:

112 by AG Ganteaume (HS 112)

130 by KL Rahul (HS 110)

144 by W Place (HS 107)

Least runs by a player who scored a fifty:

51 by HM McGirr (HS 51)

52 by KL Wishart (HS 52)

54 by SG Law (HS 54*)

Least runs by a player who scored double figures:

10 by several players

More of “Make mine a double”

As we have seen, only three batsmen have made their maiden Test century a triple century. There are many more whose maiden century was a double century. Fortunately this topic was recently mentioned in Steven Lynch’s Cricinfo column. Here is the list (as of May 2015):

A long list of 35 players, indeed. But there are many subtleties involved. In some cases the double century was the only Test century the player made. And a few of these double centuries were made on debut. In two cases the double century on debut was the only century by that player. We take a further look at the above table.

When we have a list of centuries made by each player, we can further analyze how these maiden centuries were significant. The tables below give some comments for each of the above players, bringing out some relatively rare occurrences: