Centuries in the third innings of Tests

Hope you have seen the previous post: https://abn397.wordpress.com/2021/11/24/centuries-in-the-second-innings-of-tests/

We now look at the third innings:

The most centuries in the third innings is 13 by AN Cook. He reached this record in his last Test in 2018.

Next are Sangakkara (12), followed by Tendulkar, Kallis and Hayden with 10.

Current players : the highest is 7 by Warner, followed by Root and Azhar Ali with 5.

Indian players: the highest is 10 by Tendulkar, followed by Gavaskar (7) and M Amarnath (6).

Those who loved the third innings:

R Subba Row (Eng) made all 3 of his centuries in the 3rd innings.

ADR Campbell (Zim), GC White (SA) and JDB Robertson (Eng) each made their only 2 centuries in the 3rd innings.

Those who hated the third innings:

SC Ganguly (Ind) made 16 centuries, but none in the 3rd innings.

Next are M Vijay (Ind) (12), AG Prince (SA) and TW Graveney (Eng) with 11

Those who scored the most Test centuries

The Test season gets under way with Sri Lanka hosting the West Indies at Galle from Nov 21. There are also series between India/New Zealand and Bangladesh/Pakistan coming up, not to forget the Ashes starting in December.

Here we look at a summary of the centuries made by the highest century-makers, with a breakup across innings:

Note that this does not include the ICC XI vs Aus Test in 2005, which means that ML Hayden’s century in that Test is not counted.

As we will see, a closer look at the centuries in the different innings reveal some odd facts. From the sample above we can see that Steve Waugh and Steve Smith have the most centuries without ever making one in the fourth innings. And can you guess which current player has the distinction of making all his 6 centuries in the first innings? More to come in the next few days.

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.

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.