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This week in our statistics series Did you know where we present well-known and less-known facts about a topic, we look at records and curiosities related to hundreds of fourth entries. All numbers below are for men’s test matches only.
247 The total number of centuries that have come in the fourth entry of the Tests, out of a total of 4210 centuries in the history of the Tests; in percentage terms, that’s just 5.9% of all the hundreds. Of the 247, 75 have resulted in wins, which is 30.4% of the hundreds of fourth innings. There have been an equal number of fourth innings in hundreds of losses and tied games, 86 each.
5 5 Centuries scored by Younis Khan in the fourth inning of the Tests, the most by a hitter. Sunil Gavaskar, Ricky Ponting, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Graeme Smith have scored four tons each.
4 4 Number of fourth entries hundreds for Smith in wins, most by a hitter. Ponting has three centuries of successful chases, while four others have two hundred: Conrad Hunte, Justin Langer, Sarwan, and Kane Williamson.
32 Centuries of Steve Waugh in testing, but none in the fourth inning. He has the most hundreds of runs without a ton of fourth inning. Steven Smith comes later with 26 centuries in his career, but without any in the fourth inning. Mohammad Yousuf (24), Virender Sehwag (23), Colin Cowdrey and Ian Bell (22 each) complete the top six. Among current hitters, Cheteshwar Pujara (18 hundreds) and Joe Root (17) have yet to score a hundred innings in the fourth inning. The batter who has hit the most often in the fourth inning without scoring a century is Chris Gayle, with 43 innings.
4 4 Number of fourth innings in hundreds of wins for India and Sri Lanka, which is the lowest among the top eight teams. Australian hitters have scored 20 centuries in successful chases, the most for a team, followed by 12 each for England and the West Indies. Of the four centuries of Sri Lankan hitters in successful chases, two came in 2019: Kusal Perera’s famous undefeated 153 in Durban and Dimuth Karunaratne’s 122 against New Zealand in Galle. India has the lowest percentage of fourth-inning centuries that resulted in wins, 14.29% (4 of 28) while Australia has the highest, 45.45% (20 of 44).
49 Number of consecutive innings batted by Rahul Dravid without scoring a fourth inning century. He scored his only one hundred in the last innings of a Test against New Zealand at Hamilton in 1999, and after that he made eight fifty in 49 innings with a best of 87 at Port Elizabeth in 2001. In fact, Dravid did not score fifty in his Last 21 efforts in the fourth inning, after his undefeated 68 against the West Indies in Basseterre in 2006.
5 5 Players who have scored double centuries in the fourth inning. Incidentally, four of the five hundred doubles were scored against England, while the other was by an England hitter. George Headley’s 223 at Kingston in 1930 was the first double ton in the fourth inning, and is still the highest score when he hit the last. The only double century in a successful chase is Gordon Greenidge’s 214 that didn’t come out at Lord’s in 1984. Nathan Astle’s 222 at Christchurch in 2002 is the only double ton in the fourth inning in a loss. Bill Edrich’s 219 in Durban in 1939 and Sunil Gavaskar’s 221 in The Oval in 1979 were in tied games.
44 Number of hundreds of consecutive runs scored by Jacques Kallis without a century of fourth innings. Of his 45 hundred tests, the first came in the fourth inning, when he made 101 against Australia. at the MCG in 1997, but went through the rest of his long career without replicating that effort. He made ten fifties in 46 attempts in the fourth inning after that MCG century.
7 7 Batters who scored centuries in the fourth inning on their Test debut. The last to do so was Faf du Plessis in Adelaide in 2012, while the first was Abbas Ali Baig against England at Old Trafford in 1959. Nasser Hussain is the only hitter to score a century in the fourth inning of his last Test; he scored 103 no at Lord’s against New Zealand in 2004.
eleven Instances of two hitters scoring centuries in a successful chase in the fourth inning. The last one was by Younis Khan and Shan Masood against Sri Lanka at Pallekele in 2015. Australia has had three of these cases, which is the maximum. There have been six instances of teams losing when two hitters scored hundreds. The last occurrence was in 2018, after a gap of more than 35 years, when KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant scored centuries against England in The Oval in an unsuccessful pursuit of a 464-run target.
