Centuries in both innings (15 March 1999)

15 March 1999

Centuries in both innings

M Shoaib Ahmed

Pakistan's Wajahatullah Wasti wrote his name into the record books with the second century of the match in the Asian Test Championship match at Gaddafi Stadium Lahore on March 7, 1999. Wajahat's 121 not out made him the third Pakistani player to make two hundreds against the Sri Lanka in the same match following the 133 he made in the first innings.

He becomes the 41st player to perform the feat on the 49th occasion the third Pakistani to do so. Graham Gooch is the only batsman in Test history to score a triple-hundred and a century in the same Test against India at Lord's in 1990. Four others have a double-hundred and a century in the same Test to their credit. Greg Chappell, Sunil Gavaskar, Lawrence Rowe and Doug Walters.

Graham Gooch aggregate of 456 runs (333 plus 123) is a world record in Test cricket, outstripping by a long way the two previous records for the highest aggregate by a batsman in Test Greg Chappell's 380 (247 plus 133) Australia v NZ (Wellington 1973-74) and Andy Sandham's 375 (325 plus 50) Eng v WI (Kingston 1929-30).

Sunil Gavaskar holds the records for registering two separate hundreds in the same Test on as many as three occasions, whilst England's Herbert Sutcliffe, Australia's Greg Chappell and Allan Border, West Indies' George Headley and Clyde Walcott have each done it twice.

The West Indian Lawrence Rowe is the only one to perform this twin century feat on his Test debut. The Aussie Allan Border is the only one to register 105-plus in both innings. The Sri Lankan Duleep Mendis is the only one to score exactly the same scores in each innings.

Two Aussie brothers, Ian and Greg Chappell, created a unique and hitherto unprecedented record of both hitting two separate "tons" in each innings of the same Test. The feat of a batsman scoring a century in each innings of a Test has taken place most often at Adelaide (six times) followed by three instances at The Oval, Hamilton and Calcutta. It has happened twice at each of ten other venues: Colombo, Christchurch, Karachi, Lahore, Melbourne, Wellington, Lord's, Manchester, Johannesburg, Georgetown, Kingston, Port-of-Spain, and one apiece at eleven more centres: Madras, Hyderabad (Sindh), Dacca (formerly the Eastern wing of Pakistan), Bridgetown, Nottingham, Brisbane, Sydney, Durban, Auckland and Harare.

Source :: Dawn (https://dawn.com/)