In a tour game in England,
Krish Srikkanth achieved it – a century before lunch on the opening day .. ..
quite a feat, in a World of lusty hitters..
Virender Sehwag came close to achieving it – but perhaps unmindful of
feats, he did not !!
David Warner has just
achieved it at Sydney today - a Test century before the lunch break in the
third Test between Australia and Pakistan at the SCG -- and the first man ever
to do it in Australia. Just after
midday, Warner had raced along to 80 not out. Ten minutes before the scheduled
lunch break at 12:30pm, he was sitting on 95 not out off just 78 balls. Before
this day, feat had only been
accomplished four times in Test cricket — by Victor Trumper in Manchester in
1902, Charles Macartney in Leeds in 1926, Sir Donald Bradman in Leeds in 1930 and
Majid Khan in Karachi 1976.
Having played a major role
in Australia's win in Melbourne by scoring a rapid century, Warner doubled down
with another intimidatory batting effort against bowling that mixed the
presentable with the ordinary on a blameless SCG pitch for the New Year's Test.
Matt Renshaw provided the sturdy counterpoint at the other end as Warner joined
Victor Trumper, Charles Macartney, Sir Donald Bradman and Majid Khan as the
only other men to do the trick in the very first session of a Test. Majid was
the most recent batsman to get there, making his century against New Zealand in
Karachi in 1976-77.
After Steven Smith won the
toss for Australia and announced two changes to the Melbourne team, Steve
O'Keefe and the debutant Hilton Cartwright, Warner rocketed away with a volley
of boundaries in the first two overs of the match, the second of which was
bowled by one of Pakistan's inclusions, Imran Khan. From there it seemed only a
matter of Warner keeping his wicket intact and getting enough of the strike,
two tasks he performed without too much trouble as barely a ball beat the bat.
If you are following Ranji –
in the Semi finals at Rajkot, Mumbai were Mumbai 171 for 4 (Suryakumar 73,
Waghela 48) trailing Tamil Nadu’s 305 (Indrajith 64, Shankar 50, Gandhi 50,
Nayar 4-66, Thakur 4-75) by 134 runs.. .. will they make it and shut Tamil Nadu
out of Finals is the Q. Away in Nagpur -
Jharkhand trail by 176 runs with 5 wickets remaining in the 1st innings in the
other Semis.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
3rd Jan 2017.