Virat Kohli, Steve Smith and others scoring century on their Captaincy Debut in Test cricket

Virat Kohli and Steve Smith both captained their respective sides for the first time in Tests and both hit a century in their maiden innings as Test captain. Bharath Seervi highlights the achievements of Kohli and Smith and lists the other players who did similar in the past and other numbers related to highs and lows in captaincy debut and last test as captain.

The Border-Gavaskar Trophy of 2014-15 has seen two players being given the captaincy of their national test side for the first time — Virat Kohli for India in the first test at Adelaide as MS Dhoni missed the test, and Steve Smith for Australia in the second test at Brisbane with Michael Clarke ruled out. Both men as made the best out of it with their bat.

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Kohli scored 115 runs in India’s first innings in Adelaide Test — his maiden Test innings as Indian captain — and became only the fourth Indian to score a century on captaincy debut. He followed it with 141 runs in the fourth innings to become only the second player to score twin tons on captaincy debut. In the next test, Smith replaced Clarke as the captain and emulated Kohli in the first innings. Smith scored 133 runs in his maiden Test innings as captain to become the ninth Aussie to do so.

Century on captaincy debut for India

The Indians doing it before Kohli were Vijay Hazare (164 not out), Sunil Gavaskar (116) and Dilip Vengsarkar (102). Vengsarkar did in the second innings of the Test while the others achieved in the first inning.

Century on captaincy debut for Australia

Smith was the ninth to do so for Australia and first since Graham Yallop in 1978. Billy Murdoch was the first to do so in 1880. The last three occasions have all occurred at Brisbane (Greg Chappell, Graham Yallop and Steve Smith).

Centuries in first two innings as a captain

Kohli became the second captain after Greg Chappell to score centuries in both innings of the debut test as captain. He became the third to score two centuries in first two test innings as captain as Hazare did it in 1951.

On a side note, Hazare’s scores in the next four innings as captain after scoring 164 not out and 155 were six, two, zero, and zero.

Century on captaincy debut — for other teams

Let us see the similar feats achieved by captains of the other teams.

Kohli became the 28th and Smith the 29th to score hundreds on captaincy debut. They are also are the 20th and 21st batsmen respectively to score century debut test inning as captain.

It is to be noted that Alastair Cook scored a century in each of his first 5 tests as captain.

Highest score on debut by a captain for:

Bangladesh — Shakib Al Hasan (16, 96*) against West Indies at St George’s in 2009

Pakistan — Rameez Raza (78) against Sri Lanka at Peshawar in 1995

Sri Lanka — Somachandra de Silva (7, 52) against New Zealand at Christchurch in 1983

A duck and a century on captaincy debut:

0 and 143 — Harry Trott (Aus)

0 and 153* — Bill Murdoch (Aus)

Two half-centuries on captaincy debut:

Frank Worrell, after scoring 65 in each innings of his debut test as captain, scored a pair in his next test as captain.

Scores in 90s on captaincy debut:

200 or more aggregate runs on captaincy debut:

256 — Virat Kohli (115 and 141)

244 — Graham Dowling (239 and 5)

232 — Greg Chappell (123 and 109*)

212 — Alastair Cook (173 and 39)

203 — ShivnarineChanderpaul (203*)

After dealing with the high scores on captaincy debut, let us move to ducks on captaincy debut.

Duck in debut innings as captain

Pairs on captaincy debut: Mark Taylor, Rashid Latif and Habibul Bashar

Duck on captaincy debut (Excluding first innings ducks of the table above):

The centuries and ducks on captaincy debut have been listed. What about similar feats in last test as captain?

Century in last test as captain

Ramnaresh Sarwan, Kevin Pietersen (presumably), Daniel Vettori, Kumar Sangakkara and Ross Taylor have not retired from Test cricket.

Two half-centuries in last test as captain:

Score in 90s in last test as captain:

Duck in last test inning as captain

Pair in last test as captain: Louis Tancred, Harry Cave and Ian Botham

Duck in last test as captain (Excluding last innings ducks of the table above)

Duck in only test as captain (First and Last)

# Don Bradman, Harry Cave, Pelham Warner, Percy McDonnell, Tatenda Taibu and Stuart Carlisle have scored ducks in both their first and last Tests as captain.

# Cave is the only one to score a duck in his first and last Test innings as captain.

# Kevin Pietersen is the only player to score a century in his first and last test Tests as well as in his first and last Test innings (considering he does not lead again, that is).

# Mike Brearley captained most Tests without scoring a century. He captained in 31 tests and scored seven fifties with best of 81.

# Frank Worrell (10) and Ken Rutherford (8) scored more half-centuries than Mike Brearley without scoring a ton as captain.

# Ted Dexter captained in 30 tests scoring no duck. It remains a record.

# Graham Dowling scored 239 runs in his debut test innings as captain, but scored only one fifty in the next 37 innings he batted in his captaincy career.

(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)