Centuries - Now and then!

Well recently, I came across Sachin Tendulkar's 50^th ton in test match cricket and just though from where to where is the records heading towards. I can just recall the 34 centuries by the Indian batting great Sunil Gavaskar whose record was for a change broken by a non Sachin Tendulkar when Brian Lara scored his 35^th test hundred against one of the eight test playing nations whose name is not important at the moment. This was some 5 -6 years down the lane. And now, Sunil Gavaskar's record stands in the 6^th place behind Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting and Kallis.

Likewise, Sunil Gavaskar was the first and the only one until the above mentioned ones took his place and then overtook him to score 30 centuries in tests or more. Sunil Gavaskar was the only non colored player to have scored more than 30 hundreds in tests. The other batsman to cross 30 hundreds was Steve Waugh who had worn the yellow color. As a matter of fact, the color dress in one day cricket was introduced in the 1992 world cup played in Australia/New Zealand while Sunil Gavaskar retired from all forms of cricket in 1987. Since then, all the aforementioned players have worn their team color.

Now, with totally six players joining the 30+ hundred club, shifting our focuses on batsmen who have scored 20 or more hundreds, the list is even more long with batsmen from all teams barring Zimbabwe and Bangladesh being excluded from the list. The 30+ club includes 3 batsmen from India, 1 from South Africa, 1 from West Indies and 3 from Australia, with teams like Sri Lanka, New Zealand, England and Pakistan missing out from the list. However, the 20s club does not exclude batsmen from these countries with the list going endless with as many as 33 players from 8 nations making it to the club.

Coming to the one dayers, 17 centuries by Desmond Haynes was the highest ever scored which stood for almost a decade and now, that figure stands in the 10^th position jointly held by Kallis and is ever decreasing. Similar to the fate of 30+ hundreds scores in tests, 20+ centuries in one dayers stand at number six with Jayasuriya, Sachin Tendulkar, Ponting, Ganguly, Saeed Anwar and Gibbs having achieved that. Keeping in mind these figures, there might be more number of batsmen in the days to come to score atleast 40 hundreds in tests and 30 in one dayers. Of course, very few might do a combo of 50 hundreds in both forms of the game.

New Zealand Is The Newest Victim

Well..so far it was only Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Australia and South Africa who had fallen prey to false belief by under estimating minnows like Bangladesh and end up making news for the wrong reasons.And even West Indies despite their loss to Kenya in the 1996 world cup,lost to Bangladesh in the inaugural T20 world cup.Anyway,then it was a better Bangladesh team compared to the West Indies team which was filled only by batsmen and no bowlers.But,now,the only one out of the two teams who are yet to face some music from the minnows New Zealand when they lost to Bangladesh on 9th October 2008 at Dhaka in the first ODI.

If the players make up their mind,they can rewrite history by making records in all parts of the game.For example,we have Gibbs who belted six consecutive sixes against Holland,Glenn McGrath despite being an awesome pacer,has his best bowling performance of 7/15 against Namibia in the 2003 world cup and much more.Even the recent 12 sixes in an ODI innings by a West Indian was against Canada and New Zealand's record of 401 runs came against Ireland.

Well India can boast of being the only team to have lost twice to Bangladesh,and England has a reason to smile for being the only team not to have lost to a minnow, whatsoever.The team that comes after Bangladesh who can boast of upsets is Kenya who have defeated teams like India,West Indies,Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.Even,this time its India who have lost to Kenya on two occasions.Oh! What a record?The other instances include Pakistan's loss to Ireland,which I think is the only instance of a strong team being stunned by a kid like team.

The test match is perhaps free from such debacles,or else each and every test would have seen a new record, forcing some legends like Bradman, Sobers and Lara to commit suicide.A hint was observed when Roy and Mankad's record was surpased by Mckenzie and Smith against Bangladesh.An amazing feat being that no batsmen has ever scored a triple hundred against either Bangladesh or Zimbabwe (barring Hayden's 380).

Well..if the ICC with an intension to globalise cricket gives the minnows a consession,I wonder how foolish the game of cricket would ever be.Ha ha ha..

Sun Starts Rising In Englend Atlast

High hopes of the England cricket team winning the test series was shattered when they lost the first two of the four test match series.Well,this was not expected though from the England team.And when most of us (if not all) thought it would be South Africa who would walk away with the one day series as well.this was only to be deceived.And what a captain the team has chosen!A captain who was found to play his captain's knock in the beginning of his career as captain.The captain also forced Steve Harmison against retiring from one day internationals.Looks like the words of the former England captain Michael Vaughan which said "I want 11 captains on the field" is turning out to be reality.

Pietersen's knock of 90 off just 82 balls in addition to his unbeaten 158 run partnership with Andrew Flintoff in just 21 overs at a run rate of just below an over was one of the finest way to start off his career as a captain.The question at the moment is "how long will he continue to do the good work?".If this continues atleast till the end of the series against South Africa,it would be worth the praise.The trump card of the day for England's batting was that they never lost wickets at regular intervals and batted patiently until it was really time to call the shots.Thus by blasting 94 runs from the last 10 overs.

And if this wasn't enough,the duo also had something to offer with the bat as well.For,both the batsmen who put up a huge partnership of 158,shared 4 wickets between them.Two each to both Pietersen and Flintoff.This coming at a time when the England team just needed.In other words,the England bowlers got crucial wickets whenever they wanted.Whenever the South African batsmen were found to cut loose,even the England bowlers were found cutting.All South African batsmen were found putting up the same performance.Hats off to the team effort.

Every batsman who took to the crease tried his best to over power the England bowlers.The going was easy in the beginning when Smith and Gibbs put up a score of 50 in the first 8 overs and when the second wicket fell, the scoreboard reading 93/2 after 15.4 overs.It was then only that the batting debacle started happening.But,South Africa did what England didn't.Lost wickets at regular intervals and also the match at the end of the day.

It looks like South Africa is the best opponent Pietersen.May be because this is his motherland for,he played the series of his life also against the same team amassing 500+ runs in 2005.