Graeme Smith leads the list of batsmen with most Test tons without defeats

Graeme Smith scored 27 Test tons, none of which came in defeats.

By Bharath Seervi

Graeme Smith, who retired recently, had scored 27 Test centuries in his career and none of those came in defeats. Thus, Smith has the unique record of having the most Test centuries, none of which have come in defeats. Out of the 27 centuries, 18 centuries resulted in wins and nine in draws.

Geoffrey Boycott and Wally Hammond have scored 22 Test tons, and they are behind Smith in the list of batsmen with the most career centuries without defeats. Some of the current players who haven’t faced defeats when they have scored Test tons include Ian Bell, Gautam Gambhir, MS Dhoni, Matt Prior and Kamran Akmal.

Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly scored 16 Test tons and never faced a defeat. His first Test century came on debut, which was a drawn game at Lord’s and his last Test ton came against Australia at Mohali, which India won in style. He leads the list for India for the most career tons without defeats.

Batsmen who have scored five or more Test centuries and never face defeats:

At the same time, there have been batsmen who scored Test tons, but were never on the winning side. Andrew Jones leads the list as his seven Test tons never won a game for New Zealand. In fact, all his tons came in draws. On the other hand, Bert Sutcliffe’s five tons also came in draws. It is interesting to note that Sutcliffe played 42 Tests and was never on the winning side.

Batsmen whose Test tons never resulted in victories:

(Bharath Seervi is a cricket statistician who is obsessed with digging numbers, facts and records related to the game. An active member of Society of Cricket Statisticians of India, he blogs at www.cricketseervistats.blogspot.com. He can be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SeerviBharath and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SeerviCricket)

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