Friday 13 June 2014

Players scoring 2 centuries in career's first 2 Test matches


Jimmy Neesham, 23 year old all-rounder, from New Zealand has done something which none other Kiwi player has done that before. First he scored a match saving 137* vs India at Wellington in February 2014 on his debut and then in his second test in the Caribbean scored 107 in the first inning. This made him the first player from New Zealand to achieve this unique feat in Test Cricket.

Neesham smashed 2 centuries in his Test career's first 2 Tests


Before Neesham, seven other players scored a century in each of their first two test matches of their career. First to achieve this was Bill Ponsford for Australia in 1924/1925 and the last to do this was Rohit Sharma from India in 2013. Below is the complete list.

Players scoring a century in each of their first two Test matches

Batsman
Team
First Test
Second Test
Year
Bill Ponsford
Australia
110 & 27 vs Eng
128 & 4 vs Eng
1924-1925
Doug Walters
Australia
155 vs Eng
22 & 115 vs Eng
1965
Alvin Kallicharran
West Indies
100* vs NZ
101 & 18 vs NZ
1972
Mohammad Azharuddin
India
110 vs Eng
48 & 105 vs Eng
1984-1985
Greg Blewett
Australia
102* & 12 vs Eng
20 & 115 vs Eng
1995
Sourav Ganguly
India
131 vs Eng
136 & 48 vs Eng
1996
Rohit Sharma
India
177 vs WI
111* vs WI
2013
Jimmy Neesham
New Zealand
33 & 137* vs Ind
107 vs WI
2014

Other than Neesham, all the previous seven batsmen had scored a century in their debut test inning.
Neesham is the only player to achieve the feat against 2 different teams.
Mohammad Azharuddin had scored a century in his third test as well making him the only player so far to score 3 centuries in each of the first 3 test matches.

Apart from the above eight cricketers there are four more cricketers who had scored 2 centuries in their career’s first 2 test matches, but in a different fashion. Two players scored two centuries in their debut test match and other two players scored two centuries in their second test match. Below is the table listing them.

Batsman
Team
First Test
Second Test
Year
Lawrence Rowe
West Indies
214 & 100* vs NZ
22 & 1 vs NZ
1972
Yasir Hameed
Pakistan
170 & 105 vs Ban
23 & 18* vs Ban
2003
Wajahatullah Wasti
Pakistan
6 & 9 vs Ind
133 & 121* vs SL
1999
Phillip Hughes
Australia
0 & 75 vs SA
115 & 160 vs SA
2009



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