Great cricketers of the past who made it to the top

By A.C. De Silva

A hundred is a hundred. Be it in any grade of cricket. That being the case, for a player to score 100 three long innings in first-class cricket must be a proud achievement. That, in the last 166 years history of cricket only 22 players have achieved this feat reflects the quality of those in the list. Apart from skills, strokes, combativeness and concentration, is the most essential factor for any batsman to find his name in the list.

Dr. W.G. Grace, the first to achieve this feat, required 40 years to reach this milestone. The latest to achieve this is West Indian Viv Richards when he was skipper. He completed that on November 13th 1988 when he made 101 against New South Wales at Brisbane taking fewer number of seasons - 18. But any comparison by time will be meaningless since not all those players who entered the exclusive club had a smooth run of time. The two World Wars cut into the playing career of batsman belonging to those two eras.

That of the short list of 22, as many as 18 are Englishmen is not surprising. For it is the Englishmen who get more opportunity by way of a large number of county matches. Previously more county matches were played, each county playing other twice. But the advent of onedayers has reduced the number of these matches in recent time.

There is only a solitary Australian in the list. Don Bradman occupies the 12th slot in the list. But his average is untouchable. A whopping 95.14! The remaining three are New Zealander Glenn Turner, Pakistan Zaheer Abbas and Viv Richards, of course. Turner and Zaheer got there largely because of their prolific scoring in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire respectively. Viv Richards had another distinction on the same day. Brisbane was also the venue where Bradman scored the 100th three figure mark. Missing from the list are many eminent stars. Many theories and reasons could be advanced as to why and how many batting celebrities had to miss out.

"If only Gavaskar has played more County cricket and Ranji matches. It only Gary Sobers had promoted himself in the batting order.... had not Greg Chappell turned to Packer Cercus midway through hid fine career, if Barry Richards had displayed enough temperament to translate all his native genius in to runs," and so on an so forth, not only their talent, but another big factor - their valuable time.

The list (besides Viv Richards of other 21 players (the order is in terms of hundreds):