The ManicaPost
THE moment when one gets a cap to play for their national team it is a very important day.
It is very important in cricket to get a call up to play a test match. Ever since the evolution of the sport from test to ODI to T20 there has been debate on which one is the best format of them all.
I am sort of like a conservative when it comes to this subject, I love test cricket. There is something about it that requires intense concentration to play and to watch it. So the height of any cricketer on this planet is to be able to be able to wear those whites and be on the field for four to five days fielding and batting.
Playing your 100th match in test cricket is a milestone. For every test cricketer being able to play 100 matches in the longest format of the game is a mammoth task.
In every cricket match that is played on this planet stats are important and records are made and are broken. When Hashim Amla went on to bat against Sri Lanka he had been in terrible form. His average had taken a beating from his previous matches. This was his 100th test match and we all waited to see what was to pan.
Amla overcame his run of poor form in grand style and made his 100th Test memorable. On the first day of the third Test against Sri Lanka in Johannesburg, he became the seventh South African player to reach this mark, joined a prestigious club as he notched up his 26th Test century.
In this quest, Amla became only the eighth batsman in Test history to score a 100 while playing in their 100th match. He became only the second South African batsman to score a century in his 100th Test after former skipper Graeme Smith, who achieved the feat in 2012 in the Oval Test against England.
Incidentally, in that match, Amla had become the first South African player to score a triple century in Tests.
Amla, who had gone 10 innings without a fifty and had not scored a century since January 2016, played magnificently and shared a record 292-run stand with JP Duminy, who slammed his sixth Test century. This partnership was the best for any wicket for South Africa in Tests against Sri Lanka and it rescued them from a slow start in which they were reduced to 45/2.
Duminy slammed 155, but he fell in the penultimate over of the day as South Africa ended day one on 338/3. The right-hander’s 26th Test century put him third in the all-time list for South Africa’s batsman. Jacques Kallis, with 45 tons and Smith, with 27 are on top of the century makers for South Africa in Tests. All these records have been made in the post-apartheid era in South Africa.
Colin Cowdrey of England became the first batsman to score a hundred in his 100th Test when he achieved the feat against Australia in Birmingham in July 1968.
Ricky Ponting is the only cricketer to slam a century in each innings of his 100th Test and he secured this record during the Sydney Test against South Africa in January 2006.
Well, such a gifted player has seen himself up and down, but held on to the reins and went on to score a record 100 a feat that only a few have managed to do.
God bless you all and God bless Zimbabwe
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