As per the statistics, by 2018, about 104 players have been able to accomplish this goal. One of the significant achievements is that a few of the players have been able to do it twice, the first being Lawrence Rowe and Yasir Hameed. Scoring a hundred in the Test Cricket debut hasn’t been a new thing to cricket. Nonetheless even if a young cricketer achieves this, it is a big deal. Out of all the teams, the Australian cricket team has managed to score the most of test cricket debut centuries. However, the Zimbabwean team has only managed to score the fewest.
History of the Test Cricket Debut Century
The history of cricketers scoring a century in their debut test cricket match ranges back to 1877. In March that year, Charles Bannerman set a goal for the upcoming generation by scoring a century in their test cricket. This was extremely applaudable because no player had managed to score more than 20. And not only did Bannerman cross the century but also reached the 165 mark.
But his record was broken by R.E. Foster in 1903 when he managed 287 runs. The innings of Foster remained to be the highest until 1930. Also, it is still regarded to be as the highest score in the debutant history. Nonetheless there were others too who gave a tough competition to Foster. After 1930, a number of players lined up who scored a century in their debut match.
There were other players who apart from their debut scored a century even in their second test. All these players were Mohammed Azharuddin, James Needham, Sourav Ganguly, Greg Blewett, Rohit Sharma, Bill Ponsford, Alvin Kallicharran and Doug Walters. Out of all, Azharuddin was the first player to have scored a century in his first three tests.
The players to score a century in their test cricket debut
The list of players who scored a century in their debut since the last decade include,
- Marcus North played an innings of 117, from Australia against South Africa on 26 February, 2009.
- On the same day, Fawad Alam scored 168 from Pakistan against Sri Lanka.
- Jonathan Trott scored 119 from England against Australia in 20 August 2009.
- Umar Akmal of Pakistan moved to score 129 against New Zealand in 24 November, 2009.
- Adrian Baratheon of West Indies scored 104 against the Australian team in 26 November, 2009.
- Alviro Petersen of South Africa secured a perfect 100 against India in 14 February, 2010.
- Next came, the player of the Indian team, Suresh Raina who managed to secure 120 against Sri Lanka in 26 July, 2010.
- Kane Williamson from New Zealand scored 131 against the Indian team in 4 November, 2010.
- Kirk Edwards of West Indies scored 110 against India in 6 July 2011.
- Shaun Marsh from the Australian team scored 141 against Sri Lanka in 8 September 2011.
- Abul Hasan from Bangladesh secured 113 against West Indies in 21 November 2012.
- Next came Fat du Plessis from South Africa who scored a 110 against Australia on 22 November 2012.
- Hamish Rutherford from New Zealand scored 171 against the game of England on 8 March 2013.
- The Indian ‘Gabbar’ Shikhar Dhawan had scored 187 against Australia on 14 March 2013.
- The ‘Hitman’ of India, Rohit Sharma is one of the best players as far as cricket is concerned. In his debut series he scored 177 against West Indies on 6 November 2013.
- Jimmy Neesham from New Zealand seemed to bring India down in 14 February 2014. He had scored 137.
- Stiaan van Zyl from South Africa had managed to score 101 against the game of West Indies in 17 December 2014.
- Adam Voges from the Australian team had scored 130 against West Indies in 3 June 2015.
- Stephen Cook from South African team had scored 115 in his debut against England on 22 January 2016.
- Keaton Jennings from England managed to score 112 against India on 8 December 2016 during his debut match.
- Tom Blundell from New Zealand scored 107 against West Indies in 1 December 2016.
- Kevin O’Brien of the Ireland team secured 118 against Pakistan on 11 May 2018.
- Prithvi Shaw from India secured 134 against the West Indies team on 4 October 2018.
Over the last few decades, these few individual players have been proving their skills. All of them managed to score a century and leave their mark in the history of test cricket.